Summary
1. Large goldfish have been trained to recognize Cumarin as a signal for approach to the feeding place. The movements of the fish have been registered by means of a newly developed graphic method.
2. The fish learnt to recognize Cumarin as a positive conditioning stimulus after an average of 30 trials. The Cumarin could be diluted over 1:10−5 and more without losing its effectiveness.
3. Besides a longer stay on the positive side, the fish exhibited several special forms of activity which also must be interpreted as positive behaviour, viz. intensification of the swimming movements, swimming in small circles, brief visits to the negative side with fast turning movements, “freezing” in the approach and a diagonal-positioning of its longitudinal axis to the direction of the odor stream. It is suggested that these movements serve as multiple measure of the direction of the odor gradients. Changes of the turbulence at the olfactory mucosa could help to overcome the adaptation of the odor receptors in the nose.
4. When Amylacetate was applied instead of Cumarin, the fish also behaved in a positive way (generalization).
5. When Cumarin and Amylacetate have been applied simultaneously, but on different sides of the fish tank, the trained fish prefered Cumarin. This preference of the odor, to which the fish were originally trained, but without a preceding discrimination training, can be called “primary differentiation”.
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Miesner, HJ., v. Baumgarten, R. Untersuchungen über die Geruchswahrnehmung und das Geruchsgedächtnis des Goldfisches. Pflügers Archiv 288, 118–133 (1966). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00362563
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00362563