Classical Conditioning

Taste aversion may occur when animals or people have an unpleasant experience during or after eating or tasting a particular food.

 

Classical Conditioning and Taste Aversion

Marcia J. McKinley (2005) explained that food or taste aversion may occur when animals or people have an unpleasant experience during or after eating or tasting a particular food. You have probably eaten foods that made you sick and now you avoid them. This type of classical conditioning usually involves learning after only one pairing of the CS and the UCS. A likely scenario is that a food that made you sick had some unhealthy and unwanted ingredient.

Using the Classical Conditioning Module, this scenario is explained as follows:

  1. The bacteria is the UCS.
  2. The ensuing nausea or vomiting caused by the bacteria is the UCR.
  3. The taste of the food that contained the bacteria is the CS.
  4. The nausea or vomiting resulting when that same food is tasted is the CR (McKinley (2005).