Transfer of Coloured Food and Water Aversions in Domestic Chicks

Abstract

1980. Transfer of coloured food and water aversions In domestic chicks Bird BehavIour 2 37-47 Chicks will readily form lithium chlonde Induced aversions to visual cues when eating and to taste cues when dnnklng but will not readily form averSions to taste cues when eallng or visual cues when dnnklng Three expenments were conduoted In order to further examine this asymmetncal use of cues In the first expenment an aversion was conditioned to a colour cue In either a relevent feeding context or an Irrelevant dnnklng context They were then tested With the same COlour oue In the opposite context to see If the chicks difficulties In forming coloured water averSions were due to a performanoe defiCit or asymmetncal cue selectivity The second expenment was Similar but controlled for state dependency Neither expenment demonstrated transfer of aversions The third expenment found transfer of a red water aversions to red food when the red water aversion was Induoed by potlentlatlOn via tasty water These results were Viewed as InconSistent With the belonging ness mterpretatlon of the constraints on learning Issue ChIckens Taste aversIOn VIsual aversion Eatmg Drmkmg Transfer

Disruption of chickens’ color aversions when training and test mediums are different

“…T. Lett & G. M. Martin, unpublished data). Finally color aversions do not seem to transfer readily from one medium to another (Gillette, Irwin, Thomas, & Bellingham, 1980). These data on birds' formation of color....sickness associations contrast with reports on rats' formation of flavor ....sickness associations.…”

“…Combining the color and the flavor is known as the potentiation technique since the added flavor potentiates the formation of color-sickness associations in birds (Brett et al, 1976;Clarke et al, 1979;Lett, 1980). The potentiation technique has been reported to aid the transfer of colored-water aversions to colored food in domestic chickens when a single-stimulus test was employed (Gillette, Irwin, Thomas, & Bellingham, 1980). It was hoped that the strong colored-water-sickness association produced by potentiation would aid the transfer of a colored-water aversion to agar.…”