Deprivation State and Temporal Horizons in Anticipatory Contrast

Anticipatory contrast was found to occur over a longer intersolution interval (ISI) when saccharin preceded sucrose than when sucrose preceded sucrose (Experiment 1), a result that was not due to differences in reward value or preference (Experiments 2a and 2b) or to differences in taste complexity of the initial substance (Experiment 3). Degree of deprivation affected the ISI function in the case of sucrose-sucrose pairings but not in the case of saccharin-sucrose pairings (Experiments 4a and 4b), suggesting that motivational processes, perhaps based on learning the caloric value of the initial substance in the daily sequence, modulate the ISI function.