Absence of blocking, overshadowing, and latent inhibition in social enhancement of food preferences

A rat’s preference for food of a given flavor can be substantially enhanced by allowing it to interact with a conspecificdemonstrator that has recently eaten food of that flavor. The heuristic value of treating such socially induced enhancement of flavor preference as an instance of Pavlovian conditioning was examined in three experiments. Conceiving of the smell of the food as a conditional stimulus and other cues emanating from the demonstrator rat as an unconditional stimulus, we determined whether each of three common Pavlovian phenomena-blocking, overshadowing, and latent inhibition-would occur. Using experimental parameters that readily produce socially induced enhancement of flavor preference, none of the three Pavlovian phenomena were found.