<p>Dear Carlos Flores and Beatriz Arroyo,<br><br>We have reached a decision regarding your submission to Revista Interamericana de Psicología/Interamerican Journal of Psychology, "Conditioned taste avoidance and preference using wheel running".</p>
<p>As you will see from the reviewers very clear comments below, both of them found your empirical report to be interesting, and they also believe that these data can help to explain some of the previous findings in the literature.&nbsp;As such, this manuscript would be of interest to the field.&nbsp;</p>
<p>However, both reviewers suggest several aspects in which your manuscript could improve, so we would welcome the opportunity to review a revised version of this manuscript that addresses these concerns.&nbsp;</p>
<p>If you choose to revise your manuscript in the light of these comments, please consider the reviewers' points carefully.&nbsp;The revised submission should include a cover letter that details the changes that were made to the manuscript, as well as where in the revised text those changes were implemented.</p>
<p>Regards,</p>
<p>Mario A. Laborda, PhD</p>
<p>Thematic Editor of Experimental and Comparative Psychology</p>
<p>Interamerican Journal of Psychology</p>
<p><br>------------------------------------------------------<br>Reviewer A:</p>
<p>------------------------------------------------------</p>
<p>The manuscript describes an experiment aimed at replicating that previously conducted by Dobek, Heth and Pierce (2012), but increasing the amount of tension of the running wheels. According to this study, the exercise carried out on the wheel could serve as an aversive US in a forward conditioned taste aversion preparation, as well as an appetitive US if the flavor acting as the CS is presented after the US (backward conditioning). This is an interesting finding that deserves to be replicated and addressed in more depth.</p>
<p>Here, the authors found greater consumption of the flavour presented after exercising on the wheels, this result being interpreted as a conditioned preference. However, they found no evidence of a conditioned taste aversion for the flavour presented before the wheel. This failure to replicate the findings of the original experiment is suggested to be the result of the greater tension of the running wheel. However, the lack of a control, along with the parameters originally employed by Dobek et al. make it difficult to accept this conclusion and this should merely be presented as a speculation in the discussion. Moreover, the discussion is almost non-existent.</p>
<p>In the following lines I have highlighted some limitations that I found in several sections of the manuscript.</p>
<p><strong>Methods. </strong></p>
<p>-I find it difficult to understand why in a conditioned taste aversion procedure, food, but not water, was restricted. Further, the amount of food was reduced between training and conditioning, with no obvious explanation as to why. These aspects of the procedure should be explained.</p>
<p>-The experiment was conducted with fewer and smaller rats than usual. Thus, the “n” should be recognized as a limitation of the study.</p>
<p>-The dependent variable and measures appear to be different in the Method and Results sections. This needs to be addressed.</p>
<p><strong>Results. </strong></p>
<p>-Training and conditioning data are missing and they should be presented. A curve for the conditioning data would allow us at least observe whether or not conditioning occurred across the trials.</p>
<p>-Even when aversive forward conditioning might be unsuccessful, why would consumption of such a CS be greater than the control flavour on the preference test? This finding should be discussed. Without the conditioning data, it remains possible that the main finding could be related to an unconditioned preference for some flavours. An analysis aimed to test this possibility might be informative.</p>
<p><strong>Discussion </strong></p>
<p>As I mentioned previously, the Discussion appears to be missing. Some issues that the authors might discuss could be: &nbsp;</p>
<p>-The theoretical accounts that might explain the findings.</p>
<p>-The effect that the noticeable decrement in the number of wheel-turns across the trials might have on forward and backward conditioning.</p>
<p>-The impact that the food deprivation—and the caloric restriction that this entails—, might have on appetitive and aversive conditioning.<br><br>------------------------------------------------------<br>Reviewer B:<br>------------------------------------------------------</p>
<p>The manuscript (ms) consisted on an experiment evaluating the role of the tension applied to a wheel running in taste aversion/preference. Previous literature in taste conditioning as shown that the access to a wheel can work as a US. Furthermore, the forwards or backwards association between a flavor and the wheel leads to different results (taste aversion in one case, taste preference on another). In this experiment, authors present a group of rats with a flavor ('before flavor') before access to the wheel, followed by access to another flavor ('after flavor'). The test showed more consumption for the 'after flavor' than 'before flavor' compared with a control flavor. <br>General comment: The experiment is clear, and the results are very straightforward. The manuscript has all the good elements, it just needs some improvement in how the information is presented.</p>
<p>-Several phrases need to be rephrase in order to be easy to understand. Specially in the abstract and introduction. The grammar needs to be checked. <br>-The abstract needs to be rewrite because it does not account for your procedure (the preference test was not between the flavors but compared to the control one) and the results are misleading: the authors found a difference in after flavor (AF) consumption (compared with control), there is no evidence of lower consumption of before flavor (no difference between BF and control). <br>- The abstract in Spanish has some typos. <br>- The introduction is probably the weakest section in the manuscript. All the elements are there; it just need to be reorganized. I suggest starting with a short paragraph of taste conditioning where the authors could explain that different US have been used, such as injection, drugs, and the running wheel. Then, it could be explained the literature related to taste aversion/preference with the wheel as US, what are the main results and variables on the wheel that modulate those. Then, the experiment this ms is replicating should be explained in detail, then finishing with the final paragraph as it is (it nicely explains the objective and hypothesis). <br>- There is some need for consistency when naming elements. Talking about ‘one and another flavor’, or ‘different stimuli’ can be confusing for the reader. Things like Flavor 1, Flavor 2, Chamber 1 across the ms can facilitate the understanding. <br>- Previous paragraph also calls for more details in some key experiments mentioned in the introduction.<br>- In the result section it could enrich the discussion to add a table with the average consumption of all 3 flavors during all days of acquisition. Specially because changes on consumption could be related (or not) to the tension in the wheel. <br>- Similarly, it could be useful to discuss the difference in consumption during acquisition vs test, and how that can have an effect in the results. <br>- p values that are not p&lt; .001 needs to be report with the exact p value.<br>- The order of the test should be assess as a factor in the result section.<br>- Figure 1 needs to add what the error bars mean. <br>- The discussion needs to connect more with the literature presented in the introduction.<br>- The discussion needs to add limitations and follow up experiments. For instance, an easy way to compare with Dobek et al (2012) would be introduce their design as a control group, then we can see if first the effect is replicated and compare it with the group with high wheel’s friction.</p><br/><p>The following message is being delivered on behalf of Revista Interamericana de Psicología/Interamerican Journal of Psychology. ______________________________________</p>
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<div><strong><span class="size">Dr. Fernando Andres Polanco</span></strong></div>
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