An examination of the effectiveness of inflation and deflation treatments in detecting within-compound learning of a taste aversion.
Two conditioned taste aversion experiments with rats assessed the relative effectiveness in providing evidence of within-compound learning of different procedures that involve the initial compound presentation of two stimuli, A and X, with the unconditioned stimulus (i.e., AX+). In Experiment 1, following a single AX+ trial, groups A+ and B+ received an additional conditioning trial (i.e., inflation treatment) with A and B, respectively, whereas group A- received an extinction trial (i.e., deflation treatment) with A. The results showed a reduction in the aversion elicited by the target stimulus, X, in group A- relative to both groups A+ and B+, which did not differ. Experiment 2 further investigated the failure of group A+ to increase the aversion to X relative to control group B+ by pairing A or B with either the same unconditioned stimulus that was previously paired with AX (groups A+ and B+) or with a stronger unconditioned stimulus (groups A* and B*). The results showed increased aversion to X in group A* relative to group B*, but not in group A+ relative to group B+. These results are interpreted as indicative of extinction of the within-compound association during the treatment with A, which could likely impair the detection of within-compound learning following an inflation, but not a deflation treatment.
Pineño
Oskar
O
Dpto. de Psicología Experimental, Universidad de Sevilla, c/ Camilo José Cela, s/n, 41018 Sevilla, España. opineno@us.es
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001245:Association Learning; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D013649:Taste / Q000502:physiology*