Contribution of ingestive behaviors to taste-aversion learning in the rat.

Conducted 3 experiments with male Sprague-Dawley rats (N = 132). Ss tasting but not ingesting a flavored solution prior to toxicosis acquired weaker aversions to the flavor than Ss that actively consumed the CS during conditioning. Taste was isolated from ingestion either by curarizing the Ss or by infusing a flavored solution very rapidly into the oral cavity of non-water-deprived Ss. Control groups showed that the facilitatory effect of ingestion on taste-aversion learning did not depend on the consumption of very much of the CS solution. (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)