Question

Why is the phenomenon of Learned Flavor Aversions important? What does it tell us about learning, in general?

Answer 1

The phenomenon of Learned Flavour Aversions is important mainly while treating Substance Abuse Disoreder. It is also known as Taste Aversion therapy. In this therapy, the patient is given something to eat or drink (the thing to which the patient is addicted such as cigarette or alcohol) and after having the substance, she/he is given mild electric shock which cause pain in the body or she/he might be subjected to some drug which will cause vommiting. Only one or two trials are considered sufficient to create aversion towards the substance. After two or three trials, the patient could be asked to have the substance to which she/he is addicted in order to check whether an aversion has been develped towards it.

Learned Flavour Aversion is a learning that belongs to Classical Conditioning. Here in classical conditioning, repeated pairing of conditioned stimuli and unconditioned stimuli leads to a kind of learning in which conditioned stimuli starts eliciting same respone which was once caused by unconditioned stimuli.