Learned taste aversions over long delays in rats: The role of learned safety.

Tested the proposal that learned safety accounts for the delay gradient in learned taste aversions in 4 experiments. In Exp I and II, 132 female Sprague-Dawley rats drank a small quantity of a nontoxic solution toward which they had a mild aversion. It was found, in support of the learned safety concept, that the intake in a 2nd test was a function of the delay time between tests. Exp III with 72 Ss demonstrated that no additional curve of learned safety would occur when Ss had previously received extensive experience with the solution. Exp IV with 81 Ss found, however, that learned safety was not a sufficient explanation for the delay gradient in learned taste aversions by showing that the gradient still persisted even when the experimental procedure minimized the effects of learned safety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)