Personal Narrative: My Experience With Taste Aversion
1) My experience with taste aversion occurred when I went to EFSC to get my AA. I ate coleslaw and grapes prior to a night class and later on during the class I had an extremely bad migraine to the point where I could barely pay attention to what my professor was saying which led to me vomiting in the restroom. I didn’t have coleslaw ever since.
UCS -> UCR....UCS/CS ->UCR/CR....CS -> CR
Headache and Vomit -> ill… headache and vomit/coleslaw -> ill/ill… coleslaw -> ill.
Based on classical conditioning, I paired coleslaw with the feeling of illness and that’s why I’ve never wanted it ever since. Even though the coleslaw wasn’t why I threw up I still relate the two together. My taste aversion is based on one-trial learning since it only took
me one instance to develop this aversion unlike the majority of classical conditioning which takes several instances. Also, According to Dr. Batsell, the reason why I didn’t have the same reaction to grapes is that I’m more familiar to grapes versus the coleslaw I used to have rarely.
2) Evolution is based on the premise of survival and being able to pass on genes to later generations. Animals and humans both adapt and evolve to be able to have the most optimal chance of survival. Developing taste aversions allows one to stay away from foods that could potentially kill them or make them sick and may lead to survival and more chances to reproduce.
3) Cancer patients often develop taste aversion because treatment plans often have negative side effects like nausea. Food is a daily part of living and if someone who has cancer ate a particular item and then felt the symptoms of their treatment afterward, they can associate the negative symptoms with the food they ate. UCS -> UCR....UCS/CS ->UCR/CR....CS -> CR
Chemotherapy -> Nausea…Chemotherapy/muffin-> nausea/nausea… muffin-> nausea.
One of the big issues with food aversions that aren’t harmful is that when people try to eat those foods after treatment is over, the food is still associated with nausea and could potentially cause nausea now even though it was not the actual stimuli in the first place. Some techniques to combat this, according to Dr. Batsell, is the Scapegoat Flavor technique. This essentially utilizes the concept of novel item’s being blamed more than foods that are familiar. The novel food (which the patient has no care towards) is associated with the feeling of nausea instead of the familiar foods that the patient wants to eat.
UCS -> UCR....UCS/CS ->UCR/CR....CS -> CR
Headache and Vomit -> ill… headache and vomit/coleslaw -> ill/ill… coleslaw -> ill.
Based on classical conditioning, I paired coleslaw with the feeling of illness and that’s why I’ve never wanted it ever since. Even though the coleslaw wasn’t why I threw up I still relate the two together. My taste aversion is based on one-trial learning since it only took
me one instance to develop this aversion unlike the majority of classical conditioning which takes several instances. Also, According to Dr. Batsell, the reason why I didn’t have the same reaction to grapes is that I’m more familiar to grapes versus the coleslaw I used to have rarely.
2) Evolution is based on the premise of survival and being able to pass on genes to later generations. Animals and humans both adapt and evolve to be able to have the most optimal chance of survival. Developing taste aversions allows one to stay away from foods that could potentially kill them or make them sick and may lead to survival and more chances to reproduce.
3) Cancer patients often develop taste aversion because treatment plans often have negative side effects like nausea. Food is a daily part of living and if someone who has cancer ate a particular item and then felt the symptoms of their treatment afterward, they can associate the negative symptoms with the food they ate. UCS -> UCR....UCS/CS ->UCR/CR....CS -> CR
Chemotherapy -> Nausea…Chemotherapy/muffin-> nausea/nausea… muffin-> nausea.
One of the big issues with food aversions that aren’t harmful is that when people try to eat those foods after treatment is over, the food is still associated with nausea and could potentially cause nausea now even though it was not the actual stimuli in the first place. Some techniques to combat this, according to Dr. Batsell, is the Scapegoat Flavor technique. This essentially utilizes the concept of novel item’s being blamed more than foods that are familiar. The novel food (which the patient has no care towards) is associated with the feeling of nausea instead of the familiar foods that the patient wants to eat.