Re: [fish-school] How could they train those goldfish with a cellphone?

[Dean Pomerleau]

Ann wrote:

> A couple days ago, was on a wrong side of YouTube again, LOL, and I found this video 

> ปลาทองใครเอ่ย ดริฟท์เก่งจุงเบย It's kinda funny and weird and unexplainable. 

> why these goldfish have such reaction to a cellphone. Do they really understand the signs 

> and shapes from the screen?

No they don't understand the directions written on the cellphone screen. The most likely explanation is they are being forced to swim in the pattern drawn on the cellphone, likely through manipulation of magnets they've been forced to swallow. Quite cruel actually :-(.

--Dean

Founder & Chief Fish Trainer

Fish School Inc.

[mary]

I agree with Dean, this was probably done with magnets or something similar. 

(There was a similar type of video that went viral a couple of years back that involved a group of fish swimming an intricate pattern.)

However, fish are much smarter than people realize and do have decent color vision. So, it would be possible to teach a fish to do different behaviors in response to cues presented on a cell phone. 

Diane (who I think is still on this list) was experimenting some a few years back with using symbols on an ipod as cues for goldfish. And, she was successful! There is a bit of information about this on her blog, here is on post about cues, to give you an idea of some of the things she tried:

http://www.freshwaterpearlspuppetry.com/bubbleblog/index.php?itemid=103

cheers,

Mary

------------------------------------

Mary Hunter
http://stalecheerios.com

Graduate Student
Behavior Analysis
University of North Texas

On Tuesday, October 30, 2012 4:00:19 AM UTC-5, Ann Luke wrote:

A couple days ago, was on a wrong side of YouTube again, LOL, and I found this video >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGp2Izec_-k It's kinda funny and weird and unexplainable. why these goldfish have such reaction to a cellphone. Do they really understand the signs and shapes from the screen?