Author: dsk5422

Taste Aversion – Daria Krzywda

In this past unit, we have been learning about classical and operant conditioning. One of those terms is taste aversion. A taste aversion is something that develops when a certain food is associated with the symptoms of an illness. There are many causes for taste aversions, but the main ones are becoming sick after eating that certain food, and pregnancy. This occurrence is an adaptive trait and its purpose is to avoid eating harmful organisms like bacteria and fungi. The most common symptoms that can be associated with a taste aversion are nausea and vomiting. You can get rid of a taste aversion by slowing increasing exposure to the food until the aversion is completely gone.

In my life, I have had many experiences with developing a taste aversion. One instance that I remember the most clearly is with hamburgers. I have had a very strong taste aversion to both hamburgers and cheeseburgers for many years. When I was in elementary school, my family went on a trip to Great Wolf Lodge. One night, we went to a restaurant where I had a hamburger for dinner. After dinner, I felt sick and threw up. I avoided hamburgers for a few years after this incident. Then, in middle school, I went over to my friends house for dinner where we had cheeseburgers. That same night after dinner, I threw up. Ever since that moment, I have avoided eating burgers at all costs.

This experience in my life is related to the term taste aversion because getting sick from eating burgers both times caused me to develop a severe taste aversion to burgers. Since I got sick from eating the burgers multiple times, my taste aversion was reinforced and the behavior increased. My brain associates throwing up and eating cheeseburgers and hamburgers. One day, if I slowly expose myself to them more and more, I could possibly get rid of the taste aversion.

Proactive Interference – Daria Krzywda

Proactive interference is defined as the effect of previously learned materials on the acquisition and retrieval of newer learned materials. As show in the diagram below, the name Julie was learned first and the name Judy was learned second. With proactive interference, even though you learned the second name more recently, the first name keeps interfering with the retrieval of the second name, causing confusion. With proactive interference, there is also retroactive interference. With retroactive interference, whatever you learn after affects what you learned before. For example, if you learned the name Julie first and Judy second, with retroactive interference, the second name would cause you trouble with remembering the first.

In my life, I have had many different experiences with proactive interference. My family is originally from Poland. Both of my parents immigrated here when they were adults. They wanted to pass down the language to their children, so Polish became the first language I ever learned. At the age of 2, it was the only language I spoke. When I started preschool, I learned how to speak English. At first, I would accidentally use Polish words when trying to say something in English.
My life experience relates to the term proactive interference because the language I learned first caused the confusion of speaking in the second language I learned. Since some of the words in Polish and some of the words were very similar, I had trouble distinguishing between which word belonged in which language. Eventually, I solved that problem, but with proactive interference, the Polish caused me to have trouble retrieving words in English. Even though they are very different languages, if I only learned English and never learned Polish, I would have had a much easier time being able to accurately recall words from that specific language.