ABA, AAB and ABC renewal in taste aversion learning

Abstract

Context renewal is identified when the conditioned response (CR) elicited by an extinguished conditioned stimulus (CS) reappears as a result of changing the contextual cues during the test. Two experiments were designed for testing contextual renewal in a conditioned taste aversion preparation. Experiment 1 assessed ABA and AAB context renewal, whereas Experiment 2 assessed ABA, AAB and ABC context renewal. The procedure of both experiments included three successive phases: acquisition, extinction and testing. The acquisition phase involved one pairing of sucrose flavor with a lithium chloride (LiCl) injection in Context A for all groups of rats. The groups were exposed to the sucrose flavor alone during the extinction phase, for the groups AAB and AAA extinction was carried out in Context A, whereas groups ABA and ABC were extinguished in Context B. Testing was done in context A for the groups ABA and AAA, whereas group AAB was tested in context B; lastly, the ABC group was tested in Context C. Results showed ABA, AAB and ABC renewal of conditioned taste aversion. The results are interpreted and discussed in relation to Bouton’s (1994) retrieval of information model.