Abstract
Goldfish were trained to obtain food in a four-arm maze placed in a room with relevant spatial cues. Four experimental conditions were run: allocentric, egocentric, egocentric + allocentric, and control. Relative to controls, all groups were able to solve the different tasks with high accuracy after 1 week of training. Subsequent transfer tests revealed place and response strategies for allocentric and egocentric groups, respectively, and both types of strategies for the ego-allocentric group. Moreover, the allocentric group showed the capacity to choose the appropriate trajectory toward the goal, even from novel starting points, presumably by using the distal cues as a whole. The results suggest that, in addition to using egocentric strategies, goldfish are able to solve spatial tasks on the basis of allocentric frames of reference and to build complex spatial cognitive representations of their environment.
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We wish to thank J. Bruce Overmier and Catherine Thinus-Blanc for their helpful suggestions and critical reading of a previous version of this manuscript. We also gready appreciated die comments of Peter J. Urcuioli and two anonymous reviewers, which led to improvements in this paper. This work has been supported by grants from CICYT, the Junta de Andalucia, and the FISSS.
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Rodriguez, F., Duran, E., Vargas, J.P. et al. Performance of goldfish trained in allocentric and egocentric maze procedures suggests the presence of a cognitive mapping system in fishes. Animal Learning & Behavior 22, 409–420 (1994). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209160
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209160