Persistence of Preference for a Flavor Presented in Simultaneous Compound With Sucrose.

Abstract

Rats exposed to a simultaneous compound of a flavor and sucrose subsequently exhibited a preference for the flavor over water. This preference persisted across repeated testing even though the flavor was presented in the absence of sucrose. The preference did, however, extinguish if the rats were hungry when trained or tested, or if they had been reexposed to sucrose between training and test. Though failing to extinguish the preference, presentation of the flavor outside the compound protected it from the effects of sucrose devaluation, indicating that these presentations extinguished the within-compound association between the flavor and sucrose. The authors conclude that the hedonic reaction elicited by sucrose imbues the flavor with the same hedonic properties, and these properties maintain the preference independently of the flavor-sucrose association.

Limitations on representation-mediated potentiation of flavour or odour aversions

“…A number of researchers have reported that rats increase their preference for flavors/odors that are paired with sucrose solutions (e.g., Harris, Shand, Carroll, & Westbrook, 2004). By this view, in the present study, the rats in Group Rep may have acquired a preference for O1 because it was paired with sucrose.…”

“…A third possible source of variation in responding due to preexposure effects was noted briefly in Experiment 2. Many investigators have noted that pairings of a neutral flavor or odor CS with sucrose can establish a preference for that CS (e.g., Harris, Shand, Carroll, & Westbrook, 2004). In principle, such a preference may have contributed to the results of both Group Rep in Experiment 1 of the present series, and Holland (1983, Exp.…”

Partial reinforcement and latent inhibition effects on stimulus–outcome associations in flavor preference conditioning

“…This phenomenon is readily observed in both human and nonhuman subjects alike (see, e.g., Boakes 2005;Sclafani & Nissenbaum, 1988). One of the intriguing aspects of the phenomenon is that learned flavor preferences are often reported to be highly resistant to extinction procedures (Capaldi, Myers, Campbell & Sheffer, 1983;Drucker, Ackroff & Sclafani 1994;Elizalde & Sclafani, 1990;Harris, Shand, Carroll and Westbrook 2004). For instance, Harris et al trained thirsty rats to associate an almond flavor with 4% sucrose by allowing rats to drink a mixture of the two on several occasions.…”

“…The findings suggest that the extinguished flavor was less effective than the non extinguished flavor at evoking a representation of the specific sensory properties of sucrose (that were, themselves, devalued). In this way, both effects of extinction on the resulting preference could be accounted for (see also Harris et al, 2004).…”

Cue interactions in flavor preference learning: A configural analysis.

“…Although such basic conditioning effects are reliable, the functional properties of flavour preference conditioning have been the subject of considerable debate. For example, although flavor preference learning has often been found to be particularly resistant to extinction (e.g., Capaldi, Myers, Campbell, & Sheffer, 1983;Drucker, Ackroff, & Sclafani, 1994;Elizalde & Sclafani, 1990;Harris, Shand, Carroll, & Westbrook, 2004), with more powerful designs it is possible to observe effects of conditioned stimulus (CS) alone presentations following flavour preference conditioning (e.g., Delamater, 2007). Similarly, although Campbell, Capaldi, Sheffer, and Bradford (1988) could find no evidence for contextual specificity of flavor preference learning, Dwyer and Quirk (2008) demonstrated that with more sensitive procedures rats could indeed learn preferences that were conditional upon the training context.…”