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| 1998
Special Achievement Award |
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Dr.
John Garcia
 *Dr.
Joe Martinez accepted the Special Achievement Award for Dr. Garcia at
the 1998 ANDP Fall Meeting. The following is a copy of his
acceptance remarks.
John Garcia is Professor Emeritus at the
University of California at Los Angeles. He was
elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983. He has over 130
publications. He was awarded the Howard Crosby Warren Medal for
Outstanding Research in 1978 from the Society of Experimental
Psychologists. In 1979 the American Psychological Association awarded
him the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.
I called John a few days before the award
ceremony, and I asked him how he was doing and what he wanted me to say
to those assembled at the ANDP awards dinner. First he related that his
arthritis was painful and that he was getting around on a walker, and he
was sorry he could not be in Los Angeles to accept the award. He also
wanted me to tell you that he was a farm worker until he was 20 years
old, that he worked as a mechanic making 18 wheeler trucks, and that he
was a ship fitter. I admitted to John that I didn't know what a ship
fitter was, and asked that he explain it to me. He told me that at one
point he was working in the Oakland ship yard fitting submarines with
mufflers prior to the outbreak of World War II. At this time sailors
were scoring in the submarine hull the outline of a muffler pipe to cut
into the hull for fitting. John realized that this was a problem of two
intersecting circles and solved the problem and drew for them the shape
of the hole that had to be cut into the submarine. As the war broke out
John joined the Army Air Core (today known as the Air Force) to become a
flier. Ironically, John was a decent pilot, but he washed out because of
persistent nausea. He spent the war serving his country as an
Intelligence Specialist.
Following the war John used the GI bill
to attend Santa Rosa Junior College and the University of California at
Berkeley where he received his A.B., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. When John
finished school he was 38 years old. His first job was with the U.S.
Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory in Oakland where he studied the
reaction of the brain to ionizing radiation. He went on to be an
Assistant Professor at California State College, a Lecturer in the
Department of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Professor and Chairman
of the Psychology Department at the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, Professor of Psychology at the University of Utah and
finally Professor of Psychology & Psychiatry at UCLA. It is
important to note that John only had one bad experience being an
administrator.
As we all know, John is best know for the
"Garcia Effect," or the study of taste aversion conditioning.
I asked John how he got in the field? He told me that he was a brand new
graduate student at Cal when Tolman (a legendary psychologist) came up
behind John and asked, "What are you interested in?" John
said, "I'm not sure maybe social or personality psychology."
Tolman nodded his head approvingly and asked John if he would assist him
in a course in animal experimental psychology. John protested, "I
never had a course in animal experimental psychology, and I don't even
know where the animals are kept." Tolman replied, "I'm not
sure either. Let's go ask Henry [Gleitman]." John concludes,
"This ignorant of my own fettle, I was pushed into the proper
niche."
One of John's most interesting papers was
entitled "Bright Noisy Water." Rats will readily associate
taste, but not visual or auditory cues with nausea. Significantly, and
this is still a contemporary memory problem, the taste can be separated
from the nausea by hours. Where is the memory of the taste held in the
brain? Taste aversion conditioning can be induced even when an animal is
unconscious. John's research traced out the basic unconditioned response
pathway. Neural information arrives at the nucleus tractus solitarius to
combine with information about toxins in blood sensed at the area
postrema. This information ascends to the amygdala, which is necessary
for taste aversion conditioning to occur, and is influenced by
descending information from the gustatory neocortex.
John's work has applied significance in
protecting lambs and calves from predation by coyotes and wolves. For
example, if sheep meat is laced with LiCl and covered with sheep skin
and salted in areas where coyotes hunt, then the coyotes will eat the
tainted sheep, become sick, and not wish to eat another sheep for a long
time in the future.
It is a personal pleasure to accept this
award for John. I spent many afternoons in deep theoretical discussions
with him at his home in Westwood. I view him as a mentor and a friend.
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