Abstract
Two experiments explored the Crook (1978) technique for studying neonatal taste responses. Crook presented drops of fluid through a nipple to the infant's mouth during pauses in non-nutritive sucking, and found shorter latencies to the next sucking burst for sucrose vs. no fluid, and longer bursts with increasing sweetness. The present studies investigated the effect of a particular apparatus noise which was coincident with fluid delivery. Two additional response measures, heart rate and limb movement, were explored as supplements to the sucking variables. Experiment 1 showed that presentation of the low intensity complex sound shortened latencies to suck, relative to no-sound trials. In Experiment 2, sound and fluid stimulation together shortened response latency. Results suggest cautious use of the latency measure in studies comparing fluid with no-fluid stimulation, but this caution does not apply to tests involving different taste intensities, as a pump sound accompanies the delivery of all concentrations. Heart rate and limb movement were shown to reliably differentiate responses to fluid vs. no-fluid stimulation.
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