Reinstatement of latent inhibition following a reminder treatment in a conditioned taste aversion paradigm.
Reminder treatments have been shown to facilitate the retrieval of a variety of conditioned responses. Whether or not similar results would occur with an experimental paradigm which involves primarily memory for a stimulus, i.e., where no particular response is specified, is unclear. Accordingly, using Sprague-Dawley rats, we employed a latent inhibition paradigm with a long (10 days) retention interval between sucrose (CS) preexposure and sucrose-illness pairing (training). The results demonstrated a loss of latent inhibition following the 10-day retention interval suggesting "forgetting" of the CS preexposure. However, placing a single reminder exposure to the CS within the preexposure-to-training interval reinstated the preexposure effect. Controls indicated that in the absence of the initial preexposure the reminder per se did not produce latent inhibition. Thus, a reminder can reinstate a stimulus attribute (flavor representation) and explicit conditioned responses.
Ackil
J K
JK
Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Ohio 44242.
Carman
H M
HM
Bakner
L
L
Riccio
D C
DC
D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D003463:Cues; D004326:Drinking; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D013649:Taste