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Updated: Jun 24, 2026

Aversive Associative Learning and Memory Formation by Pairing Two Chemicals in Caenorhabditis elegans
Published on: June 23, 2022
Factors determining the effects of associative activation on habituation
Geoffrey Hall1, Gabriel Rodriguez
1Department of Psychology, University of York, York, England. g.hall@psych.york.ac.uk
Abstract:
In 2 experiments, rats received flavor-aversion conditioning with two flavors, B and C, to which they had been preexposed. In both experiments, C was preexposed in compound with another flavor in a block of CX trials. In Experiment 1, B was presented in compound with Y, and BY trials were alternated with presentations of Y alone. In Experiment 2, B was presented in compound with X, and BX trials were alternated with presentations of X alone. No difference was detected in Experiment 1 between B and C in the ease with which they conditioned, but in Experiment 2 it was found that B conditioned more readily than C. This latter result is consistent with the hypothesis that experience with the associate of a target stimulus can act to maintain the effective salience of that stimulus; however, the results of Experiment 1 challenge this interpretation or indicate the operation of other factors that limit the effectiveness of this salience modulation process.
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