Latent inhibition of conditioned disgust reactions in rats.

The present experiments, using the latent inhibition (LI) paradigm, evaluated the effect of nonreinfoeced exposure to saccharin on the acquisition of an LiC1-induced saccharin aversion as measured by conditioned disgust reactions in the taste reactivity test and conditioned taste avoidance in a consumption test. When rats were preexposed to saccharin by bottle exposure (Experiments 1 and 3), LI was evidenced only by conditioned taste avoidance (bottle testing), but not by conditioned disgust reactions (intraoral [10] testing). On the other hand, when rats were preexposed to saccharin by 10 infusion (Experiments 2 and 3), LI was evidenced only by conditioned disgust mactions, but not by conditioned taste avoidance. Experiment 4 showed that LI of conditioned disgust reactions does not appear to be affected by a context shift from preexposure to testing phases. These results show that the expression of LI of both conditioned taste avoidance and conditioned disgust reactions depends critically on a common method of flavor exposure during preexposure and testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]