How Smart Are Your Fish?

RJRofFL · 08-31-2008, 04:22 PM

Hey everyone,

I recently read an interesting article in which a high school student in Mt Kisco, NY performed an experimental "Intelligence Test" with his pet Red Parrot Fish.
The article was a bit lengthy, displayed great patience and transpired over about a five week period.
In brief here is what he did:

First he trained the fish to follow his finger across the outside of the glass and dropped food into the tank near his finger. This caused the fish to associate that "finger = food."

He then replaced his finger using a red cap (he used the lid of a TetraMin container). The fish then responded with "red cap = food."

He then advanced to using two disks, one red and one brown. He placed food granules atop the red disk and nothing atop the brown one. He stood away from the tank with the disks equidistant in his hands and slowly approached the tank. When the fish approached the red disc he was rewarded with food. When the fish approached the brown disk he was given no food.

He then further advanced with disks which had a single white circle and one with three circles, rewarding the choice of a single circle.

He then did the same with a disk of a single circle and one with a star.

Here are the test results:

Test************** Trials**Correct*** %Correct** Odds of Coincidence

Red disk - brown disk..... 20...... 18.............. 90%............. 1:2500

1 cir vs 3 circles............ 20....... 9............... 45%............ 1:1.5

Circle vs Star................ 50...... 38............... 76%............ 1:5000

He concluded that his fish can see color, and see shapes and was capable of learned intelligence.

However, the interesting part was that it appeared the fish was not able to tell the difference between 1 circle and three. This would have seemed important since fish need to know how many fish are attacking them.

So, tell me. How Smart Are Your Fish?

Bob

gregpape23 · 08-31-2008, 10:09 PM

That is very interesting. I would have thought that they would mix up the red and brown as they are fairly similar colors. I wouldnt say my fish are that smart... but when they are hungry they go to the corner of the tank where I feed them. LOL my fish are highschool dropouts compared to these "genious" fish. lol

Judge · 09-01-2008, 08:56 AM

Very interesting Bob!! I don't know how smart they are but I can walk up to the glass and they all come out, Mr.P can do the same and they all haul and hide in the rocks.

LiVe4fIsH · 09-01-2008, 12:21 PM

Cool thread Bob. Im sure we all have our own little techniques when it comes to feeding our fish. When it comes to feeding my fish, I correlated taping with my finger nails against the glass very slightly and it took only about a week for them to learn and once I tap, they all become little food monsters and ready to eat. Even my new cats are starting to catch on.

This thread reminded me of one of my evolutionary bio classes I took a year ago. There was a study done to describe the difference of innate and learned behaviors in animals. An innate behavior is described as a fixed action pattern. A FAP (fixed action pattern) in humans would be a yawn, a sequence of unlearned, inflexible behaviors that once initiated; it usually would have to be carried to completion. Ok, so the study was on male stickleback fish. These fish were quite territorial when it came down to another male stickleback trying to enter into his territory. The reason for this was due to the overall goal of trying to mate with female sticklebacks that would cross into his ?land? and through natural selection, if he had the characterizes of a stickleback, he could mate with her. Well, to have an innate behavior happen, one must have a sign stimulus. The sign was the red underside (belly) of an intruder (fish or object). The experiment found that if red was present an attack would occur even if the shape of the object was unrealistic. Also, if no red was present on the object, there would be no attack even if the shape was the SAME as a stickleback!! This showed a strong relationship to color, obviously. An ultimate cause for this though, is that the male fish (intruder) would decrease the chance that eggs laid in his nesting territory would be fertilized by another male. Other experiments have been done to show that sticklebacks would try and attack (at the glass of the tank) at people walking by with red shirts on or cars passing by that were red (tank was stuck at the wall of a store). I just thought that this was such an awesome experiment to share to the rest of you fish addicts and to show all of us that these little guys might seem like they do not know much, but don?t under estimate their intelligence!!

Tommy Gun · 09-01-2008, 08:50 PM

I agree, very interesting. While I think a lot of this is the good old "Pavlov's Dog" syndrome, I have noticed that my fish can also recognize me versus my wife and they absolutely hate my kids...or so it seems. On the other hand, I know a lot of people speak about Oscars as the FW equivalent of "Man's Best Friend" and speaking from experience, Porcupine Puffers in the saltwater world are definitely very situationally aware...even to the point where my last one would literally spit water out of the tank at us as we watched TV as if it was begging for attention!

As I am sure a lot of people can attest to, including Live4fish, one of the larger reasons that cichlids have such a huge fan base in this hobby is because of their habits/lifestyles. I'd even go as far to say that the community fish I have in my cichlid tank have also been able to learn how to adapt to life with cichlids as well since they all school together despite their being from different species and families.

...just one more aspect of this hobby that can be so rewarding!

Thanks for Sharing RJR!

TG

RJRofFL · 09-01-2008, 11:11 PM

I really didn't think I would be adding to this thread, but I have to tell you, this one falls in the category of "Can You Top This?"

My neighbor is another aquarist and when I showed her this article, she immediately came back with this "true story."

Her aquarium is setup on a long wall alongside her sofa. It is nicely decorated and she recently purchased one of those "upside down U-shaped caves" and placed it on the gravel flush against the side glass.

I don't remember which fish it was, but one of them immediately took up residence in this cave. Unfortunately, her cat would continuously jump on the sofa and was able to see whenever this fish was in the cave since it was open on both sides and was against the glass. So the cat would press his nose against the glass and scare the fish out from his cave.

This went on for a week or so, when she noticed that the cat suddenly stopped this behavior. It appears that this fish somehow methodically placed or stacked pieces of gravel at the rear of the cave leaning against the glass to form a "wall" in which the cat could no longer see him. Now, he can go into his cave whenever he darn well wants to.

I'm sure there is some sort of "motto" that fits this better but IMO this is simply "Fish Outsmarts Cat!"

Amazing creatures they are.

Thanks again,

Bob

river rock · 09-02-2008, 01:21 PM

i have south Americans...and they deff know if its me walking up to the tank rather then my roommates...cause they see me as the food source....as soon as i enter the room all eyes are on me to the point were they looking at the bag of food waiting for me to grab it and throw some in....