Elsevier

Physiology & Behavior

Volume 32, Issue 6, June 1984, Pages 983-989
Physiology & Behavior

Conditioned taste aversions: Generalization to taste mixtures

https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-9384(84)90289-0Get rights and content

Abstract

Rats were trained to take their daily water ration within a 30-min session, during which the number of licks per 10-sec presentation of a drinking tube could be recorded. During one of these sessions, one of three stimuli (sucrose, NaCl or HCl) was presented, followed by the administration of cyclophosphamide to produce a conditioned taste aversion. When tested with mixtures of the conditioned stimulus (CS) with the other two stimuli and also with quinine hydrochloride, the animals avoided mixtures containing the CS in proportion to its concentration in the mixture. Although the natural preferences and aversions for these stimuli interacted somewhat with the learned taste aversions, rats responded to the presence of a CS in a mixture and did not generalize to other stimuli not containing the CS. Thus, the generalization of conditioned taste aversions provides a good measure of the behavioral similarities among gustatory stimuli.

References (28)

  • M. Domjan

    Poison-induced neophobia in rats: Role of stimulus generalization of conditioned aversions

    Anim Learn Behav

    (1975)
  • T. Engen

    Psychophysics: II. Scaling methods

  • J. Garcia et al.

    Cue properties vs. palatibility of flavors in avoidance learning

    Psychon Sci

    (1970)
  • J. Garcia et al.

    Cues: Their relative effectiveness as a function of the reinforcer

    Science

    (1968)
  • Cited by (0)

    This research was supported in part by National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke Grant NS-10211 and Research Career Development Award NS-00168 to D.V.S. This work was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the M.S. degree, University of Wyoming (by R.M.T.).

    View full text