The processing of injected flavour in the flavour aversion learning preparation

This research examines the processing of injected flavour in the flavour aversion learning paradigm. It is found that an aversion can be conditioned to injected saccharin solution only if the presentation of reinforcement (poisoning by lithium chloride) is delayed, and not if animals are poisoned immediately after injection of flavour. It is concluded that intravascular perception of injected saccharin solution persists for a number of hours after the time of injection, and that the time of occurrence of poisoning within this period determines the strength of any resulting aversion to the flavour of saccharin. In particular, the length of delay before poisoning is concluded to determine how much flavour exposure will occur before illness, thus contributing to the acquisition of an aversion to that flavour; and how much flavour exposure will occur after illness, thus contributing to the total or partial extinction of that aversion. A number of investigations are proposed for the purpose of establishing whether or not the intravascular taste mechanism operates in preparations where the flavoured solution is consumed in the normal way. Incidental findings of this research are that confinement is capable of acting as an unconditioned stimulus in the food aversion learning paradigm, and that the development of sensitisation follows a slower time course than either the attenuation of neophobia or the conditioning of flavour aversions