POTENTIATION INSTEAD OF OVERSHADOWING IN THE PIGEON

Experiment 1 provided an examination of the relative strengths of lithium chloride-based (10 mg/kg .3 M LiCl) visual and taste aversions in the pigeon. When conditioned separately taste aversions were stronger than visual aversions. When conditioned in compound, the strong taste cue potentiated rather than overshadowed the weak visual cue. Experiment 2 provided a replication of this potentiation of a weak visual cue by a strong taste cue. These results obtained with the pigeon parallel those recently reported with the rat where a strong taste potentiated rather than overshadowed a weak odor cue. The implications of these findings for theories of poison-based compound conditioning were discussed in terms of the relevance of the nontaste stimuli in a species' feeding behavior. © 1979 Academic Press, Inc.