Submitted by Tardigradelegs t3_y30ixz in science
Abstract
Neurophysiological advances have given us exciting insights into the systems responsible for spatial mapping in mammals. However, we are still lacking information on the evolution of these systems and whether the underlying mechanisms identified are universal across phyla, or specific to the species studied. Here we address these questions by exploring whether a species that is evolutionarily distant from mammals can perform a task central to mammalian spatial mapping–distance estimation. We developed a behavioural paradigm allowing us to test whether goldfish (Carassius auratus) can estimate distance and explored the behavioural mechanisms that underpin this ability. Fish were trained to swim a set distance within a narrow tank covered with a striped pattern. After changing the background pattern, we found that goldfish use the spatial frequency of their visual environment to estimate distance, doubling the spatial frequency of the background pattern resulted in a large overestimation of the swimming distance. We present robust evidence that goldfish can accurately estimate distance and show that they use local optic flow to do so. These results provide a compelling basis to use goldfish as a model system to interrogate the evolution of the mechanisms that underpin spatial cognition, from brain to behaviour.
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- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.1220
Yes, some good stuff on this topic in /r/fishcognition too
Who funded this and why?
Bottom of study linked: Funding
This research was funded by a Human Frontier Science Program grant RGP0016/2019. C.N. was funded by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship.
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The peer review process is important.
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This is really interesting.
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I worked at a fish hatchery and some of the larger fish could tell if you were coming by to feed vs catch them. I think they recognized the fish net or maybe our posture?
They would also know if their food should float or sink, and rush to the appropriate area. I’d consider that a pretty decent memory
Fish are smart. My mollies look at me when they are hungry and get excited when I walk over. Also, I read something on how fish do indeed feel pain. I think it was something on how Japanese chefs kill the fish used for sushi as if they feel pain hey are not as good.
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Yes, a lot of research on pain in fish now, this one off the top of my head: https://phys.org/news/2019-09-fish-pain-similarity-mammals.html
The title has nothing to do with the article
You worried about your tax dollars?
Exploring how smart fish can be, or whether or not they experience pain & suffering, might just be a fantastic use of tax dollars - it could end up reducing demand for seafood, which is in decline and threatened by global warming.
Cognition and memory are vital areas of research. Just because you're incapable of seeing the relevance of knowledge and applications doesn't make it irrelevant.
This type of research is valuable for cognition and dementia
That's outdated info.
There's at least 60 years of research into fish memory now. It's one week in the study I last read and even that one is out of date now.
https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2019/10/27/how-long-is-a-goldfishs-memory/
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Hell yeah
Maybe goldfish have the cure for dementia hidden away, deep in their shallow little brains.
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Read the article, it is pretty short and interesting.
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The paper is not studying goldfish memory and the BBC article's title is just wrong. The actual title is Distance estimation in the goldfish (Carassius auratus).
They were studying how goldfish estimate distance swam, which apparently is via visual references.
Boolean algebra was once considered useless because it had not real world application. Nowadays, most people have in their pocket a little device that wouldn't even exists if boolean algebra wasn't invented. You can never know if or when a discovery will have real world applications.
The study was not about memory, it was studying distance estimation. The actual title is Distance estimation in the goldfish (Carassius auratus). The BBC just made up a totally different title.
Boolean algebra was once considered useless because it had not real world application. Nowadays, most people have in their pocket a little device that wouldn't even exists if boolean algebra wasn't invented. You can never know if or when a discovery will have real world applications.
It's not long held. It's also been disproven before too as a team of scientists created a sort of vertical maze with clear acrylic walls and after several tries the fish learned how to get around the invisible walls and where they were located. They learned where the walls were, and how to get around them.
Want to know how cognition works? Gotta study it at work. Guarantee psychologists and folks developing AI pay attention to stuff like this
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My three neon tetras even do this. They get noticeably excited when I grab the food bag
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Goldfish are quite trainable. At my old job, one of my coworkers taught one to swim through a hoop and push a little plastic ball into a little soccer goal.
The MythBusters did this years ago
Fascinatingly horrifying that people believed they didn’t feel pain.
Mythbusters did this first, something like a decade ago!
They better have been credited for their research!
:)
Dude, people used to think human babies didn't feel pain. Or at least didn't remember so no anesthesia operations used to be a thing. I mean, I get it, probably easy to eff up a baby with anesthesia but still.
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It’s amazing how my fish react to me, my loaches will come to the surface and do little jumps when the food is coming.
They also like to launch themselves out of the tank in protest when the food hasn’t come fast enough…
Great, you've ruined Ted Lasso for me.
The only reason we were ever told that is so parents didn’t feel bad about getting fish just for them to die the next day cuz they did no research and just plopped a goldfish in a glass bowl full of tapwater
Don't tell the scientists! They're gonna be pissed when they find out!
Are you trying to tell me Ted is wROnG?!? Ted Lasso is NEVER wrong!!!
Loaches are like tiny aqua-puppies, I had a group of 10 when I last kept an aquarium and they were the life of the party. Zipping around, cart-wheeling, making excited clicking noises you could hear from across the room, and as you said doing mini flicks and jumps when you lifted the lid for feeding time. If I were to set up a tank again I think it would just be loaches.
yes, please don’t buy fish. adopt, don’t shop
I always qstn the roi on this stuff. I don’t feel like it was worth it but anyone pls explain
Ted Lasso lied to me!
Guess I'm team Nate now.
“Be like a goldfish, agonize over your memories until you die”. Doesn’t have such a good ring to it.
Has someone told Ani DiFranco?
It's always nice when scientists reproduce the Mythbusters' experimental results.
Ted Lasso in shambles.
It doesn’t disprove the memory theory at all. Goldfish have an incredibly keen sense of smell.
Animals feel pain, surprise!!
Tgis shouldn't even need confirming ffs
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Gotta rewrite Ted Lasso, then.
Anyone who keeps gold fish know how easy they are to train. They 100% learn and know when they are about to be fed.
I never thought of that as memory per se but I guess it is!
Wow, it seems like we really operated under the principle of ‘if they don’t say ouch, that must mean they don’t feel pain!’
It seems so stupid in retrospect. Apparently we’re just terrible at having empathy for other sentient living things sometimes.
Fish quickly recognize any lure sold at Canadian Tire. Sometimes you need to make something custom to really get reliable strikes.
I’d call goldfish highly variable. Some friends had had pet goldfish that were absolutely ‘the lights are on but nobody is home’. Not a single thought going on in there.
Yet one friend had a big goldfish that was super smart, recognized his owner and got super excited when he was around. It was a dog trapped in a fish body.
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I'm going to forget this article exists and continue using "memory of a goldfish" just because...
So can we stop putting them in tiny, featureless bowls now?
A fish tank is a pretty terrible environment in which to live out a life. I’m not surprised that otherwise lively fish would shut down
…well this depressed me
Thank God. Now I can sleep at night.
There was a study done by children for a science fair where they flashed a flashlight during mealtime training the fish to eat when the light went on daily. So I thought this goldfish have no memory thing was debunked long ago.
Mythbusters did something like this (although I’m sure a much more simplified version) a while ago. It was a fun episode.
That moment when the goldfish become smarter than you.
How long does it take a goldfish to travel 70cm and back? I can't imagine it would take more than a few seconds
Wonder if we started saying goldfish have no memories before or after we started storing them in little glass bowls.
Paraphrase: "Goldfish have proven people are stupid"
There is literally goldfish playing soccer, very well used research fund money.
Can I join the team of scientists that are proving birds can actually fly?
Now imagine someone locked you in solitary confinement in a bowl for your entire life.
No different from an indoor cat I guess. If you have a suitable set up (enough space, stimulation) fish will be fine.
My kuhli loaches are horribly shy (as they tend to be). Weirdly enough they're less wary of me if I'm wearing red, which I chalk up to them having red cherry shrimp for tankmates. They're probably used to red things that sometimes move abruptly.
I've got an angel fish that comes to the front of the tank when I get home every evening and literally stares directly at me until I feed them.
People justify torture of animals in all sorts and ways
I have a colour changing light in my tank that moves between blues and greens, but at 5pm the tank goes red telling me to feed the fish. When the tank goes red the fish get agitated and hang about in the feeding corner.
I put koi in our pond last summer. The koi used to run away from me, but now, as I come to feed them, they swarm to me bc they know I mean food. Yea, they’re not as dumb as people think.
So glad we know this now. We were in a rough spot when we didn't know.
Uhm, some doctors still think black people don’t feel as much pain. Stupidity is rather prevalent in humans.
Correct and what’s more, feral cats only live about five years. It’s rough out in the jungle.
I have said “sorry, I’ve got the memory of a goldfish”for a very long time. I guess now I’ll just have to admit I’m a burnout.
Thanks science.
I feel like this is just another study without enough testing done. You can still have a bad memory if you simply explicitly remember the last thing you did, or one thing, or just utilize a food reward. I don't see food rewards that are necessary for survival as a good indicator of good memory.
Obviously goldfish are able to navigate their surroundings.
See mum, my memory isn't like a goldfish.. it's worse
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