learned food/flavor/taste aversion

n. One-trial learning in which an animal learns to avoid a food after it has been sickened and especially if it has regurgitated after having eaten that food. Other stimuli such as sound and lights do not produce such one- trial learning. This was important in showing that not all learning was equivalent, as had been supposed by behavioral theorists. These flavor aversions are extremely resistant to extinction as many animals will never again eat anything with the flavor to which they have learned to be avoidant; some rats have starved to death rather than eat food which had made them sick in the past.