Conditioned Disgust, but Not Conditioned Taste Avoidance, May Reflect Conditioned Nausea in Rats

Parker and her colleagues begin their chapter with a fundamental question, i.e., what is the nature of aversion learning. Specifically, they describe the early work of Garcia and his colleagues who interpreted the avoidance of taste associated with various toxic treatments to be a function of conditioned nausea or conditioned disgust. According to this interpretation, the association between the taste and nausea resulted in conditioned disgust reaction to, and avoidance of, the taste on subsequent exposures. The chapter by Parker and her colleagues reviews the evidence that conditioned disgust is produced by emetic agents (i.e., agents capable of inducing vomiting) and that conditioned disgust mediates conditioned taste avoidance. Several lines of research are described.