ABSTRACT
The main focus of this chapter is on the contribution of learning to the rejection, avoidance, and dislike of certain foods. Learned taste aversions are those that develop on the basis of experience with a food or drink. The experience on which such aversions are based is often the consumption of a food or drink prior to a bout of illness. The illness can be a consequence of ingestion or it can be coincidentally associated with consumption of a food or drink, such as happens when one acquires aversions during a bout of flu. Aversions tend to be idiosyncratic; that is, individuals differ from one another with respect to the targeted food or drink that becomes associated with the illness. There also is a strong propensity for humans and other animals to “blame” any illness on some ingested food (Garb and Stunkard, 1974). Aversions can be reduced or extinguished if the individual experiences the food without subsequent illness.
