Conditioned food preferences.

Abstract

his chapter reviews the various ways animals, including humans, form T preferences for foods through experience and how these preferences might be changed. As will be seen, in omnivores such as rats and people, most food preferences are produced by experience. This fact is counterintuitive because individuals appear to have such pronounced likes and dislikes on their first encounter with a food; yet few of these preferences are built in. Exposure to food with no consequences increases liking; however, if there are consequences of consuming food (getting sick, feeling full), these consequences determine preference. The taste and other sensory qualities of food also contribute to preference. The taste of food produces liking and disliking that appear to be genetically mediated, whereas, the other sensory characteristics of food (odor, temperature, texture, appearance) appear to produce their effect through learning.Most of the work in this area has been done with animals because their experience can be precisely controlled. The principles derived from the animal work have been validated with humans, however, and human experiments are also described in this chapter.There are four known ways to increase preference for a food: mere exposure, the medicine effect, flavor-j7avor learning, and flavor-n u trien t learning. In mere exposure, consuming a food repeatedly increases preference for that food. As mentioned in chapter 4, human infants prefer the odor and taste of foods consumed by their mothers. This process continues throughout life and is believed to have a biological basis. Because foods that are 53

Expression of flavour preferences conditioned by caffeine is dependent on caffeine deprivation state

“…Recent theories about the nature of conditioned flavour preferences suggest that these may combine hedonic conditioning and expectancy learning (e.g. Rozin and Zellner 1985;Capaldi 1992). Given the lack of insight into the nature of the present study reported during debriefing, subjects appeared to have no conscious awareness of the role of caffeine in the study, or the contingent relationship between caffeine and the drinks they consumed.…”

“…Holland andRescorla 1975, see Dickinson andDawson 1987). Since flavour preference conditioning is believed to be based (at least partly) on Pavlovian conditioning (see Booth 1985;Sclafani 1991;Capaldi 1992), an explanation for the changes at test in group U/Caffeine in terms of irrelevant incentive seems unlikely, although the slight change in rated novelty at test suggest these ideas are worthy of further investigation.…”

Caffeine Deprivation State Modulates Expression of Acquired Liking for Caffeine-Paired Flavours

“…Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions Previous studies in animals and humans have shown that repeated experience of a novel flavour in association with a positive postingestive consequence can increase liking or preference for the flavour (Brunstrom, 2005;Capaldi, 1992;Zellner, 1991). This effect is usually defined as flavour -consequence learning and is interpreted as an example of classical conditioning.…”

Flavoured cigarettes, sensation seeking and adolescents’ perceptions of cigarette brands

“…Government officials and consumer advocates in Australia, Canada, the United States and the European Union have charged the tobacco industry with introducing such sweet flavoured cigarettes as an attempt to appeal to new smokers 1 2 3 4 5 6. It is known that sweet flavours encourage trial of unfamiliar foods and are particularly palatable to youths 7 8. Accordingly, there is reason to be concerned that flavoured cigarettes may serve as a means to introduce youths to tobacco, and that these cigarettes may be especially appealing to high sensation-seeking youths who are predisposed towards stimuli that offer a novel and potentially heightened sensory experience 9 10.…”