Two experiments, using rats as subjects, examined the role of contextual cues in producing the unconditioned stimulus (US) pre-exposure effect in conditioned taste aversion. Experiment 1 showed a significant US pre-exposure effect, when the pre-exposure was conducted in a familiar context, and that a change of context between the pre-exposure and conditioning phases did not attenuate this effect. Experiment 2 demonstrated that extinction of injection-related cues after the pre-exposure stage attenuated the US pre-exposure effect, when the pre-exposure was conducted in either a familiar or a novel context. Taken together, these results support the associative explanation of the US pre-exposure effect in terms of blocking, incorporating a role for injection-related cues in the context blocking analysis of the US pre-exposure effect.
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