Within-compound associations between taste and contextual stimuli

When rats are presented with a compound conditioned stimulus (CS) made up of two taste elements, they are able to form a within-compound association between the individual elements of the CS compound. The present experiment demonstrates that when a taste stimulus is presented in a distinctive context, subjects are able to form a within-compound association between taste and contextual stimuli. These data suggest that within-compound learning represents a general process by which subjects are able to associate stimuli from a variety of modalities. Implications of these data for explanations of taste-potentiated contextual aversions are discussed.