Potentiation and Blocking of Conditioned Flavour and Context Aversions

Abstract

Experiments 1, 2, and 3 demonstrated that the place in which rats had been made sick subsequently blocked the development of an aversion to a novel flavour that was presented in that place and paired with illness. These experiments also showed that a poisoned flavour subsequently potentiated the acquisition of an aversion to a novel place in which it was presented and paired with illness. Experiments 4 and 5 examined the hypothesis that the potentiation effect was mediated by the association between the place and the averted flavour rather than by the association between the place and the illness. However, there was no evidence that the place acquired aversive control over ingestive behaviours simply as a consequence of it having contained the averted flavour. Further, reinforcement of the aversive flavour outside the place-flavour compound increased flavour aversions but decreased, rather than increased, place aversions. These failures to detect evidence for an association between the place and the poisoned flavour led to a consideration of whether the animals were sensitive to the relation between the place and the poisoned flavour. Experiment 6 demonstrated that the potentiation effect was in fact contingent upon the relation between the place and the poisoned flavour, as was required by the view that the poisoned flavour had facilitated the association between the place and the illness.