The importance of contextual elements in taste‐aversion learning

Archer, Trevor; Sjödén, Per Olov; Nilsson, Lars‐Göran

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.1984.tb01016.x

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Interestingly, there is evidence that contextual factors (also called "exteroceptive stimuli") are important for CTA learning as well. A learned aversion to drinking saccharin solution was greatly attenuated when animals were tested in a dissimilar context: importantly, the aversion they initially learned was still active when returned to the original context (Archer et al 1979(Archer et al , 1984Sjödén and Archer 1981). This effect parallels that of some of the studies mentioned here and our data from Experiment 4 (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Sign-tracking behavior is sensitive to outcome devaluation in a devaluation context-dependent manner: implications for analyzing habitual behavior

2020

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Motivationally attractive cues can draw in behavior in a phenomenon termed incentive salience. Incentive cue attraction is an important model for animal models of drug seeking and relapse. One question of interest is the extent to which the pursuit of motivationally attractive cues is related to the value of the paired outcome or can become unrelated and habitual. We studied this question using a sign-tracking (ST) paradigm in rats, in which a lever stimulus preceding food reward comes to elicit conditioned lever-interaction behavior. We asked whether reinforcer devaluation by means of conditioned taste aversion, a classic test of habitual behavior, can modify ST to incentive cues, and whether this depends upon the manner in which reinforcer devaluation takes place. In contrast to several recent reports, we conclude that ST is indeed sensitive to reinforcer devaluation. However, this effect depends critically upon the congruence between the context in which taste aversion is learned and the context in which it is tested. When the taste aversion successfully transfers to the testing context, outcome value strongly influences ST behavior, both when the outcome is withheld (in extinction) and when animals can learn from outcome feedback (reacquisition). When taste aversion does not transfer to the testing context, ST remains high. In total, the extent to which ST persists after outcome devaluation is closely related to the extent to which that outcome is truly devalued in the task context. We believe this effect of context on devaluation can reconcile contradictory findings about the flexibility/inflexibility of ST. We discuss this literature and relate our findings to the study of habits generally.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Sign-tracking behavior is sensitive to outcome devaluation in a devaluation context-dependent manner: implications for analyzing habitual behavior

2020

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“…Context-specific aversion can occur that is independent of Pavlovian cues (Loy et al 1993;Boakes et al 1997), and context can drive taste aversion in autoshaping procedures (Archer et al 1984). Our results indicate, surprisingly enough, that aversions can also be made to be more context-dependent when the application test is one in which the food is preceded by a series of learned lever cues.…”

Section: Serial Cues Both Acquire Incentive Salience With a Bias Towamentioning

confidence: 54%

Evidence of structure and persistence in motivational attraction to serial Pavlovian cues

Smedley

Smith

2018

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Sign-tracking is a form of autoshaping where animals develop conditioned responding directed toward stimuli predictive of an outcome even though the outcome is not contingent on the animal's behavior. Sign-tracking behaviors are thought to arise out of the attribution of incentive salience (i.e., motivational value) to reward-predictive cues. It is not known how incentive salience would be attributed to serially occurring cues, despite cues often occurring in a sequence in the real world as reward approaches. The experiments presented here demonstrate that reward-proximal cue responding is not altered by the presence of a distal reward cue (Experiment 1), and similarly that reward-distal cue responding which animals favor, is not altered by the presence of a reward-proximal cue (Experiment 2). Extinction of reward-proximal cues after training of the serial sequence leads to a generalized reduction in lever responding (Experiment 3). Together, we show that both Pavlovian serial lever cues acquire motivational value. These experiments also provide support to the notion that sign-tracking responses are insensitive to changes in outcome value, and that responding to serial cues creates a distinct context for outcome value.

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“…One important factor to consider when comparing across these response measures (TR, intake, breakpoint) is context; that includes the exteroceptive context such as the room, chamber, fluid delivery system, and the interoceptive context, such as the deprivation state. Interoceptive and exteroceptive cues are encoded in learned associations and come to exert some control over responding [11, 12, 45–49]. Accordingly, one might predict that the shift, both exteroceptively and interoceptively, from the single-bottle training or testing to the TR test assay could effectively weaken the expression of conditioned rejection responses that were established in a different context, especially if the initial learning was less robust or otherwise different.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conditioned taste aversion versus avoidance: A re-examination of the separate processes hypothesis

2019

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Rats not only avoid ingesting a substance associated with LiCl toxicosis, but they display rejection reflexes (e.g., gapes) to its taste; this latter response is thought to reflect disgust or taste aversion . Prior work has shown that rats also avoid consuming foods/fluids associated with other adverse gastrointestinal (GI) effects like lactose indigestion but without the concomitant change in oromotor responses (taste reactivity; TR) indicative of aversion. Because of interpretive limitations of the methods used in those studies, we revisited the taste aversion-avoidance distinction with a design that minimized non-treatment differences among groups. Effects on intake and preference (Experiments 1a, 1b, and 2), as well as consummatory (TR, Experiment 1a and 1b) and appetitive (Progressive Ratio, Experiment 2) behaviors to the taste stimulus were assessed after training. In both experiments, rats were trained to associate 0.2% saccharin (CS) with intraduodenal infusions of LiCl, Lactose, or NaCl control. Rats trained with 18% lactose, 0.3 and 1.5 mEq/kg dose of LiCl subsequently avoided the taste CS in post-training single-bottle intake tests and two-bottle choice tests. However, only those trained with 1.5 mEq/kg LiCl displayed post-conditioning increases in taste CS-elicited aversive TR (Experiment 1a and 1b). This dose of LiCl also led to reductions in breakpoint for saccharin. The fact that conditioned avoidance is not always accompanied by changes in other common appetitive and/or consummatory indices of ingestive motivation further supports a functional dissociation between these processes, and highlights the intricacies of visceral influences on taste-guided ingestive motivation.

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The importance of contextual elements in taste‐aversion learning

Cited by 10 publications

References 15 publications

Sign-tracking behavior is sensitive to outcome devaluation in a devaluation context-dependent manner: implications for analyzing habitual behavior

Sign-tracking behavior is sensitive to outcome devaluation in a devaluation context-dependent manner: implications for analyzing habitual behavior

Evidence of structure and persistence in motivational attraction to serial Pavlovian cues

Conditioned taste aversion versus avoidance: A re-examination of the separate processes hypothesis

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