Bm. Slotnick et al., WHAT THE RATS NOSE TELLS THE RATS MOUTH - LONG DELAY AVERSION CONDITIONING WITH AQUEOUS ODORS AND POTENTIATION OF TASTE BY ODORS, Animal learning & behavior, 25(3), 1997, pp. 357-369
In Experiment 1, olfactory bulbectomized and control rats were trained
using operant conditioning to determine the taste threshold of aqueou
s amyl acetate. Concentrations below gustatory threshold were used in
Experiments 2-5 to compare the effectiveness of odors with various con
centrations of saccharin as cues for illness. The results showed the f
ollowing: (1) The effectiveness of odor and taste was directly related
to concentration; (2) the strength of an aversion to a concentration
of taste could be matched by an appropriate concentration of an odor;
(3) odor was as effective as taste with CS-US delays of 4 h; and (4) a
n effective odor potentiated an aversion to an otherwise ineffective t
aste. The results challenge the privileged role accorded tastes in foo
d aversion learning and the manner in which tastes are held to interac
t with odors according to the sensory-and-gate channeling analysis of
potentiation (Rusiniak, Hankins, Garcia, & Brett, 1979).