Conditioned physiological changes associated with learned aversions to tastes paired with thiamine deficiency in the rat.

Resistance of “recovery” flavors to later association with illness

“…The measurements of fluid intake and body weight throughout this experiment indicated that the rats in the recovery and recovery-familiarity groups became severely thiamine deficient during the first 23 days of the experiment, showed brief recoveries after the thiamine injections on Days 24 and 30, and showed prolonged recoveries from deficiency follOwing the injection of a larger dose of thiamine on Day 36; during the same period, the rats in the familiarity group gained weight continuously and showed no decrease in fluid intake. Because the effects on bc,dy weight and fluid intake were virtually identical to those reported in other studies employing similar manipulations to produce thiamine deficiency and recovery (see Zahorik, 1972;Zahorik, Maier, & Pies, 1974), the data for body weight and fluid intake will not be presented here.…”

“…Although there have been several successful demonstrations of rats' preferences for flavors which have been paired with recovery from illness (Garcia, Ervin, Yorke, & Koelling, 1967;Green & Garcia, 1971;Seward & Greathouse, 1973;Zahorik, 1972;Zahorik & Maier, 1969), it has been suggested that none of these studies offers conclusive evidence for any appetitive conditioning involving flavors and positive gastrointestinal consequences and that all these results can be explained using only the concepts of learned aversions, neophobia, and increased neophobia following experience with illness (McFarland, 1973;Rozin & Kalat, 1971). However, more recent evidence suggests that preferences produced by pairing a flavor with recovery from illness are even larger than the "learned safety" effect produced by pairing a flavor with simply being well and that the preferences shown for recovery flavors are probably due in part to associations between the tastes and recovery from illness (Zahorik, Maier, & Pies, 1974).…”

Aftereffects of lithium-conditioned stimuli on consummatory behavior.

“…It may be that lithium-conditioned stimuli elicit a conditioned sickness reaction (cf. Zahorik, 1972), and drinking is increased because it is instrumentally reinforced by reduction of this conditioned malaise. Alternatively, lithium-conditioned stimuli may evoke an expectancy of lithium toxicosis that results in increased drinking as an anticipatory antidotal response (cf.…”

Taste aversions to food flavors and vaginal secretion in golden hamsters.

“…Surprisingly, male hamsters show dramatic changes in behavior toward the vaginal secretion when its presentation has been followed by lithium chloride poisoning, suggesting that mammalian responses to sex pheromones are far more easily modified by experience than has been sup-Taste aversions have been demonstrated in several species, using a wide variety of taste stimuli paired with various gastrointestinal illnesses. Sodium chloride (Nachman, 1963) and saccharin (Garcia & Koelling, 1966) provided the taste stimuli for many of the early taste aversions studies, but aversions have also been demonstrated using such liquids as sucrose solution, milk, and grape juice (Revusky & Bedarf, 1967), anise-, banana-, and vanilla-flavored water (Zahorik & Maier, 1969), and acetic acidand cfuinine-flavored water (Zahorik, 1972). In addition to these flavored liquids, various flavors of solid food are also avoided when they have been paired with gastrointestinal illness (see Rozin, 1967, for numerous examples).…”