Taste-aversion conditioning with expected versus unexpected drug treatment.

Following differential conditioning in which a drug-predictive taste solution (D) infused into the oral cavity of rats was followed by a lithium injection and a no-drug-predictive solution (ND) was not reinforced, animals received a backward pairing between lithium and a novel saccharin flavor. Subjects infused with either the D solution or tap water immediately before backward conditioning learned weaker saccharin aversions than animals infused with the ND solution and animals given no infusion at this time (Experiments 1 and 3). These latter groups did not differ from each other (Experiment 3). The interference with aversion learning produced by water infusion appeared to be due to conditioned excitation that accrued to sensations of the infusion process. Extinction of the infusion sensations eliminated blocking produced by the infusion of water (Experiments 4 and 5). The blocking of saccharin-aversion learning produced by infusion of the D solution was due, to a large extent, to the conditioned aversiveness of the D taste. Extinction of the aversion to the D taste eliminated the interference with saccharin conditioning (Experiment 2), whereas extinction of the excitatory properties of the infusion process did not prevent the blocking of conditioning by infusion of the D solution (Experiment 5). These results are inconsistent with suggestions that taste-aversion learning is a primitive form of conditioning; rather, they demonstrate the influence of informational variables on conditioned taste aversions.