Can fish correct their escape response in relation to consecutive stimulus?
As part of the fish swimming course I attended at Friday Harbor Laboratories in the San Juan Islands, WA, we examined whether fish were able to correct their escape response in relation to two stimulus. Fish were placed in the center of an arena and stimuli were dropped on either side of the fish consecutively. We tested the fish under three conditions, 30ms separation, 60ms, and control (only one stimulus). It seems that the fish exhibited a greater proportion of away responses in the control and 60ms group, but there was no difference in the proportion of towards or away response in the 30ms group. These results suggest that early in the initiation of the escape response a fish might not be able to correct its position, resulting in the randomness of towards vs. away response in the 30ms, as compared to the control or 60ms group.
