Within-compound associations are not sufficient to produce taste-mediated odor potentiation.

Rats were used in two flavor-aversion experiments to determine if within-compound associations could be detected with a taste+odor compound that would not support taste-mediated odor potentation. In Experiment 1, following taste+odor compound conditioning, postconditioning taste extinction significantly weakened the odor aversion. In Experiment 2, following taste+odor compound conditioning, postconditioning taste inflation significantly strengthened the odor aversion. There was no evidence that taste potentiated the odor aversion in either Experiment 1 or 2. Thus, the results demonstrate that the presence of within-compound associations is not sufficient to produce taste-mediated odor potentiation. We offer a mediated conditioning explanation to account for the results of these two experiments.