Exteroceptive cues in taste-aversion learning, no artifact: Reply to Holder

Abstract

Holder (1988) has raised several objections to our work on the role of exteroceptive contextual stimuli in taste-aversion learning by rats. Our main conclusion from that work is that tonguetactile stimuli from the drinking spout constitute the likely basis for findings of contextual bottle control over learned taste aversions. Holder suggests that our results are confounded by taste cues from the fluid containers. We refute this suggestion by presenting data from two experiments showing contextual bottle control, even though potential taste cues from the drinking bottles were eliminated. We also point to the fact that some of Holder's criticisms are based on misreadings of our various reports.In a series of publications from our laboratory during the last 9 years, we have documented findings from a project concerned with the role of contextual stimuli in taste-aversion learning in rats ). Our general conclusion, summarized in a recent review paper , is that "a contextual compound stimulus consisting of botdes, compartments and an odor element was demonstrated to exert strong control over postconditioning saccharin intake" and that "the relative salience of the contextual elements was demonstrated to be in the order of bottles

Recovery effects after extinction in the Morris swimming pool navigation task

“…Instances of this context effect have been reported in the literature of both standard appetitive and aversive conditioning tasks (e.g., Archer, Sjödén, & Nilsson, 1985;Hall & Honey, 1989;Sjödén & Archer, 1988, although some other studies had reported no such effect (e.g., Bouton & King, 1983;Bouton & Peck, 1989). Instances of this context effect have been reported in the literature of both standard appetitive and aversive conditioning tasks (e.g., Archer, Sjödén, & Nilsson, 1985;Hall & Honey, 1989;Sjödén & Archer, 1988, although some other studies had reported no such effect (e.g., Bouton & King, 1983;Bouton & Peck, 1989).…”

Spatial contiguity, not cue-to-consequence, is the issue in taste-potentiated noise-illness associations: Comment on Holder, Bermudez-Rattoni, and Garcia (1988).

“…In a similar study in which an auditory stimulus was provided by the clicking noise from a drinking bottle spout, Archer, Sjödén, and Carter (1979) found that the auditory cue did not contribute to a saccharin aversion. In a discussion with Holder (1988) of the conditioning of drinking spout clicks as contextual stimuli in taste aversion learning, Sjödén and Archer (1988) further stated that “we have nowhere proposed that our results demonstrate a noise–illness association, inasmuch as our own data contradict such a proposal” (p. 236). Thus, taken with the findings of Archer and his colleagues, Holder et al (1988) provided additional experimental support for the notion that spatial contiguity–noise established as an attribute of rather than near the ingesta–is important for the conditioning of a noise–illness association.…”