Variable processing of flavors in rat STM

Abstract

Hooded Lister rats exhibited less neophobia towards (i.e., drank more of) a novel fluid (3% lemon or 5% sucrose) on a 10-min test if given a 6-min exposure to that fluid 6 h earlier. Presentation of a distractor (1.26% coffee) immediately after preexposure to the test solution enhanced neophobia habituation to lemon (Experiment 1), but disrupted habituation to sucrose (Experiment 3). This bidirectional distractor effect was not due to distractor-induced change in the hedonic value of the preexposed test flavor (Experiment 4). Evidence was obtained (Experiment 5) indicating that the rat perceives lemon to be more similar to coffee than is sucrose. It is suggested that when test flavor and distractor are dissimilar, processing of the distractor denies the preexposed test flavor sufficient processing in STM to allow encoding of information about that flavor in LTM. Consequently, the rat responds to a subsequent presentation of the test flavor as it would to a novel stimulus. When test flavor and distractor are similar, however, the distractor elicits less processing in STM (cf. Wagner, 1976) and is therefore less able to disrupt STM processing of the preexposed test flavor. The resultant loss of neophobia to the test flavor resulting from encoding of information about that flavor in LTM may then be augmented by generalization of attenuated neophobia to the distractor. Consistent with this analysis, coffee was shown to suffer more proactive interference when preceded by lemon than when preceded by sucrose (Experiment 6). © 1983 Psychonomic Society, Inc.