Failure to learn in a taste aversion paradigm: Associative or performance deficit?

Abstract

A transfer paradigm was employed to examine the possibility that the apparent failure of rats to associate exteroceptive stimuli with internal malaise reflects a performance deficit. Repeated pairings of distinctive apparatus cues with rotation-induced motion sickness produced no evidence of conditioned suppression to the CS complex. However, relative to controls which had received noncontingent rotational experience, the experimental rats acquired conditioned fear more rapidly when the apparatus cues were paired with footshock in the transfer phase. This facilitation of conditioning suggests that an associative representation between exteroceptive stimuli and internal consequences was acquired but not expressed in overt responding. © 1977, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.