Experimental Analysis of Spatial Learning in Goldfish

The present study examined spatial learning in goldfish using a new apparatus that was an open-field circular pool with latticed holes. The subjects were motivated to reach the baited hole. We examined gustatory cues, intramaze cues, the possibility that the subject could see the food , etc. In Experiment 1, the position of the baited hole was changed for each trial in a random searching group, while it was fixed in the spatial learning ~lroup. Performance in the latter group was better than that in the former group. In Experiment 2, the effects of intramaze cues were examined by rotating the wall and the floor of the maze, and the effects of extramaze cues were examined by coverin~J the maze with a curtain after the training. Blocking extramaze cues disrupted the subject's performance, but altering intramaze cues had no effect. In Experiment 3, we examined the effects of different sensory cues. Subject's performance was not impaired after sectioning of the olfactory nerves, but it was after eye enucleation. These results demonstrated that the goldfish used visual extramaze cues to learn this spatial task.