How to train your goldfish to commands; is that possible?!

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<h1>How to train your goldfish to commands; is that possible?!</h1> by J Gillard <div align=justify>It turns out that all of the old stories about fish having three second memories are untrue. During recent scientific studies, fish have been taught many long-term skills that they are capable of remembering over the course of many months. Dr Phil Gee from the University of Plymouth says, "Research has also shown that fish can learn to distinguish between different shapes, colors and sounds. They can even learn that pressing a lever will dispense food at certain times of the day." The applications of this newfound skill are still being explored but fish farmers are set to capitalize on it by training fish to swim to feeding stations. Hang on a second and read the results before I teach you how it's done. At a certain time of day, every day, the fish will respond to a specific, pre-trained noise and all swim to the same place in a lake. This even works when the fish are in open water, free to roam as they please. This system is using fish's intelligence to better improve their quality of life and at the same time keep the animal rights activists at bay. The fact that fish can be reliably trained to be called on command for feeding and monitoring means that the fish farmers can now keep the fish without using cages. -- So how exactly do I go about training a fish? What can I teach it to do? The most basic way of training a fish to perform a task would be through what psychologists call "Operant Conditioning". It means that the fish will learn how to operate a simple device simply because when by chance they do operate it they get a reward. A basic type of operant conditioning device for fish is a small box with a sensitive lever that will dispense food when the lever is pressed. To see a video of a fish doing this go here: http://www.psy.plymouth.ac.uk/fish/ Download the video and watch. You see the fish operating a very sensitive form of lever rigged to a food dispensing device. With a little bit of thought, something similar would not be difficult to make. You can buy fish food dispensers with small levers online and the idea is that a fish learns to use it through trial and error. At some point a fish will accidentally make the dispenser work and will receive the reward of food. The reward entices the fish to perform the same behaviors as the first time and receive the reward again at a later time. At this point the fish is trained to use the lever. Conditioning a fish to respond to a command is a slightly different task. One of your options is to wait until you see your fish performing the behavior that you want, perform the trigger (e.g. a unique noise like a bell) and give your fish a reward (e.g. food). Over time, if you do this while giving your fish a reward one in three of the times that this works then your fish will become conditioned to respond to the noise in this way. For more complicated behaviors that your fish does not already use then do the same as above only in stages building up to the final behavior. For example, condition your fish to swim forwards on command, and then swim backwards on a different command until you have trained it to do laps. The principals of classical conditioning hold that this will always work the same way it does with dogs and the dolphins that you see in sea world. I hope that this article has at least been interesting for you to read and maybe given a few hobbyists some ideas for their fish. 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Shop in our convenient online store for brands like Mag-drive, Kent Marine, E.S.V., Dolphin Pumps, JBJ, Aqua Logic, Ice Cap, Aqua Medic Lighting, Sunlight Lighting, Current USA, Neptune Systems and other leading quality brands." </div> Article source: <a href="http://www.ArticlePros.com/PetsLivestockWildlife/Fish/article-68699.html">ArticlePros.com</a> <table align=center width=550 cellspacing=1 bgcolor=silver cellpadding=5> <tr bgcolor=antiquewhite> <td> About the author Feel free to distribute and host this article wherever you please and free of charge as long as none of its content is changed. 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