John Garcia
- American psychologist & pioneering researcher on taste aversion.
- received his A.B., M.A., & Ph.D. when he was 38
-The Garcia Effect-
- Graduated from the University of California: Berkley in 1955
- Garcia eventually received an award for his work from the American Psychological Association. The Garcia Effect became widely known and is now cited as a prime example of prepared learning or, as it is sometimes called, biological constraints on learning.
What is Taste Aversion?
- Form of classical conditioning:
- involves forming an association between two stimuli resulting in a learned response.
- the mind associates illness with specific foods and develops a strong distaste towards those foods, and so causes the body to intentionally avoid them
- supports evolutionary perspective that being biologically prepared to quickly associate nausea with food/drink is adaptive
Presented by:
Narry Ouk, Natasha Hovey, & Karthik Ramaswamy
Types of Stimuli
- Neutral Stimulus (NS): a stimulus that does not produce an automatic response
- Conditioned Stimulus (CS): A previously neutral stimulus that, after repeated association with an unconditioned stimulus, elicits the response caused by the unconditioned stimulus itself
- Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): unconditionally, naturally, and automatically triggers a response
Types of Responses
- Conditioned Response (CR): an automatic response established by training to an ordinarily neutral stimulus.
- Unconditioned Response (UCR): unlearned response that occurs naturally in response to the unconditioned stimulus
Experiments
- bait shyness with coyotes & sheep
- studying the effects of ionizing radiation on the behaviors of laboratory rats
[1974]
Bait Shyness
- occurs when the animal tastes a toxic bait, normally resulting illness, and then subsequently avoids the bait, regardless of toxicity
[1]
- lab rats were given saccharin-flavored water and, shortly after, were exposed to radiation (causing nausea)
Question:
[1]
[4]
What are some examples of taste aversion in humans?
- an ongoing conflict had risen between conservationists and ranchers concerning coyotes & sheep
- the coyotes bypassed the sheep, opting instead for the rabbits
[5]
- conservationists stressed the importance of the coyote and the biological niche it filled
[2]
- ranchers viewed coyotes as pests & killers that needed to be eliminated in order to save their flocks of sheep
- this indicated that their aversion was only towards the sheep flesh
- aversion can develop after one trial
In Conclusion:
[3]
[2]
- time interval between food exposure and sickness symptoms could be extended to several hours
- sights, sounds, and other sensory information do not produce the same aversion to food as taste
- discovered that radiated rats would eventually stop drinking the saccharin solutions supplied to them during tests
Works Cited
Cacioppo, J., & Freburg, L. A. (2012). Discovering Psychology: The science of the mind. Cengage
Learning.
Dewey (2007), The Garcia Effect, http://www.intropsych.com/ch08_animals/garcia_effect.html
Sarah Lavoie, Dr. John Garcia vs. Classical Conditioning, http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-garcia-effect-definition-lesson-quiz.html
- Garcia's observations threatened the rules of behavioral psychology originally proposed by Ivan Pavlov
- coyotes were fed a sheep carcass laced with enough lithium chloride (LiCl) to cause extreme illness & nausea
- after several meals and subsequent illness, the coyotes were offered the opportunity to attack live sheep & natural prey, such as rabbits
- Garcia is best known for finding exception to the process of learning by classical conditioning
- according to evolutionary psychology, taste does not exist solely for enjoyment, but for survival
Lab Rats, Radiation, & Saccharin Water
Examples:
1. Food poisoning
2. Chemotherapy Patients
[4]
[3]
- showed that the duration between the CS and UCS could be hours and still result in conditioning
- demonstrated that rats associate sickness with tastes & smells rather than other stimuli