Learning What Not to Eat!

I am sure that we have all at one time or another vowed never to eat a particular food (or more likely take a particular drink) again because it made us sick. This ability that we have to very quickly, and strongly, develop an aversion to a particular food is a common property of a very wide range of animal species, and one that is generally described as a conditioned taste aversion (CTA).

CTA is of course a form of classical conditioning, and a conditioned aversion can be generated if an animal is presented with food that has been related with a sickness-inducing agent. It then associates the food with the sickness that it subsequently experiences.

Scientists took advantage of this useful technique to reduce the activity of a specific predator on a specific prey population. Here the aim is not to condition the subject to avoid a taste that it associates with the food, but to condition it not to attempt to eat the food at all.

Such technique reduced the death of various animals needed to protect and clean the environment as well as the ecosystem. For instance, amphibians (such as frogs) are needed to clean the environment from cockroaches and spiders; if the population of amphibians decreases, we will have to accept the fact that cockroaches and spiders will have to live with us, just like any other member of the family.