Goldfish 3 Second Memory Mythbusted

Goldfish 3 Second Memory Myth-busted

Posted on July 11, 2016

There’s a popular belief that a Goldfish’s memory lasts 3 seconds and that every other lap of their fishbowl for them is seeing the world for the first time. Their brain power is at best shallow, or so we thought. But scientists believe fish may have hidden depths. Movies like ‘Finding Nemo’ which had a character like Dory, an absent-minded and forgetful fish has done little to dispel the myth of fish being dumb. However, a few studies were carried out to test if this myth was true.
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Here are the three best experiments carried out:

1. Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters

He trained his goldfish to recognise colour patterns and run an underwater obstacle course. A month after initially learning the course, the fish remembered it and completed it easily without Hyneman prompting.

2. Rory Stokes of Australia

Rory Stokes, a 15-year-old student at the Australian Science and Mathematics school conducted an experiment with his pet fish to test their memory.

He took a red Lego block and put it in his fish tank whenever he fed the fish, sprinkling the food around the block. Three weeks into the experiment, the fish were approaching the block and waiting for the food before it hit the water. During those weeks, the time it took the fish to reach the block went from over a minute to just under five seconds. Then, for six days, he fed the fish without using the block. When he placed the Lego in the tank again, the fish rushed to it in just 4.4 seconds. “They remembered perfectly well,” Stokes told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

3. Technion Institute of Technology

Researchers from the Technion Institute of Technology in Israel trained young fish to associate a sound played through a loudspeaker with feeding time.

Each time they played a particular sound, the fish would return for food.

After a month of training, the fish were released into the sea.

Four to five months later, when they had become adults, the sound was played again and the fish returned.

Researchers at the Technion Institute conducted repeated experiments and the results were surprising! Goldfish have a memory of up to five months and not 3 seconds, despite popular belief.

Myth = Busted!

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