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Using a Y-maze procedure involving shock reinforcement, goldfish were forced to choose between a red or a green cued arm of the maze. Although the 18 animals tested showed, as a group, an average green preference, equal numbers of animals showed individual green (6), red (6), and no-color (6) preferences. Differences between conclusions based on group means against individual performances are noted. In goldfish, at least, the shock-reinforced Y-maze procedure may represent a very useful technique for further color preference assessment.

Goldfish, run in a Y-maze, with the simultaneous presentation of a cue associated with shock and a second cue associated with safety (no US), acquired a decided preference for the safe cue. These data are interpreted as representing a clear demonstration of stimulus-specific conditioned avoidance. Because earlier research has been challenged by unusual control performances, this instrumental learning conclusion is hesitantly drawn.

Goldfish, acquiring a passive avoidance response, showed substantially fewer responses in trial intervals than did their yoked controls. A passive procedure, where US reinforcement occurred immediately upon response, produced superior avoidance acquisition to a punishment procedure, where, if response occurred at any time during the trial interval, US reinforcement was administered at the end of the interval. This finding is consistent with the traditional delay of reinforcement gradient. Although goldfish acquired the passive avoidance response, it appeared to be situationally generalized and not stimulus specific, as indicated by a lack of differences between animals trained with a CS and those …

Various active-avoidance procedures and controls were run using goldfish in a shuttlebox where the CS, when used, was a sudden onset of illumination. In terms of increasing “avoid- ance” performance over days of training, CS-only, response-contingent US-only, and time- lapse groups showed significant “learning,” whereas explicitly unpaired CS and US pseudo- conditioning controls and US only (where US omission is not response contingent) did not show performance increases. The use of the pseudoconditioning procedure as a learning control for this animal seems questionable. Additionally, both classically and instrumentally trained groups showed high and comparable acquisition rates, confirming earlier findings. A …

Eleven groups run under classical, instrumental, pseudoconditioning, CS-only, US-only, and time-lapse procedures, with the ITI illuminated and a color change CS, showed that true classically trained animals do not increase CAR performance with training, whereas instru- mentally trained goldfish do. This is consistent with a phototaxic interpretation suggested in earlier work. Additionally, the finding that CS-only and time-lapse controls show high “acquisi- tion” rates, whereas pseudoconditioning controls do not, not only questions the use of the pseudoconditioning procedure as the sole learning control in this situation, but also questions a learning interpretation itself. Conclusions of what and how, or even …

Earlier work found that goldfish (Carassius auratus) acquire a conditioned avoidance shuttle response (CASR) differentially as a function of CS location (same, opposite, or both tank ends) when the CS is a sudden onset of illumination, and hypothesized that subjects acquire an aversion to the light. The present study finds no evidence for a conditioned aversion, but shows initial negative phototactic effects in the onset illumination situation which occurs without acquisition. Additionally, when the localized CS is a color change rather than an illumination change, the differential effects between same and both do not occur, and the very low CASR …