Presentation Details
| Within-compound associations cause retrospective revaluation of taste value in rats Griffin J.M.McFarland, Jian-You Lin, Donald B.Katz. Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA |
Abstract
Animals learn about the meaning of stimuli through associative learning, which is not limited to currently presented stimuli but can also apply to stimuli experienced previously, in a phenomenon called retrospective revaluation. To examine how the meaning of taste stimuli can be reevaluated retrospectively, I designed a two-stage conditioning procedure, then asked whether the learning that occurred during stage 2 influenced what was learned during stage 1. During stage 1, rats were presented with NaCl and sucrose solutions, then given an injection of LiCl to produce a mild conditioned taste aversion (CTA) to both tastes. For stage 2, I presented a novel citric acid solution and either the sucrose or salt solution, again followed by a LiCl injection, creating a combined forward and backwards blocking paradigm. The rats were then given salt, sucrose, and citric acid on separate days to measure their taste preferences, which were compared to those of animals that: 1) received saline injections instead of LiCl; 2) did not receive citric acid in stage 2; or 3) received no stage 2 taste presentations, only water. Preliminary results show a trend where the aversive strength of a taste increases after the stage 2 conditioning, even if that taste was not presented in stage 2. This indicates that a within-compound association formed between the tastes presented together in stage 1, which then produced retrospective revaluation of the absent stimulus after stage 2. Notably, the increase in aversiveness indicates that backwards blocking (a more nuanced form of retrospective revaluation, which would have predicted a decrease in aversiveness) did not occur. Thus, while the rats are capable of performing retrospective revaluation on taste stimuli, it is only a simpler and less nuanced form.
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