Question

Question 2 (1 point) Saved One feature of taste aversion learning that is not found in any other type of learning is... A) learning with delays of several hours O B) very slow extinction C) both a and b OD) neither a norb

Answer 1

Ans. C

an unusual kind of conditioning because it can occur when the interval between the gustatory stimulus and the toxic stimulus is hours, it can occur in one trial, and it is resistant to extinction.

Conditioned taste aversion is a form of associative learning; in this case, an animal learns to associate the novel taste of a new foodstuff with subsequent illness resulting from ingestion of some nausea-inducing agent. The adaptive value of this form of learning is clear; by preventing subsequent ingestion of sickening foods, survival is enhanced. For this reason evolution has selected for robust learning under these conditions, and animals learn after a single pairing of a novel taste with a nausea-inducing agent to avoid that taste in the future. This single-trial learning is also quite robust in that there can be a rather long delay—often measured in hours—between the novel taste and toxin.