Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Osmoregulation in Fishes

Osmoregulation in Fishes

When cells are placed in a hypotonic (low-salt) fluid, they can swell and burst. Meanwhile, cells in a hypertonic solution—with a higher salt concentration—can shrivel and die. How do fish cells avoid these gruesome fates in hypotonic freshwater or hypertonic seawater environments?

Fixed Action Patterns

Fixed Action Patterns

A fixed action pattern (FAP) is a specific, hard-wired sequence of behaviors that occurs in response to an external stimulus, called a sign stimulus. The behavior is “fixed” because it is essentially unchangeable—proceeding similarly across individuals of a species every time it occurs.

Testing a Claim about Population Proportion

Testing a Claim about Population Proportion

A complete procedure for testing a claim about a population proportion is provided here.
There are two methods of testing a claim about a population proportion: (1) Using the sample proportion from the data where a binomial distribution is approximated to the normal distribution and (2) Using the binomial probabilities calculated from the data.
The first method uses normal distribution as an approximation to the binomial distribution. The requirements are as follows: sample size is large...

Parental Care

Parental Care

Many animals exhibit parental care behavior, including feeding, grooming, and protecting young offspring. Parental care is universal in mammals and birds, which often have young that are born relatively helpless. Several species of insects and fish, as well as some amphibians, also care for their young.

Communication

Communication

Communication between two animals occurs when one animal transmits an information signal that causes a change in the animal that receives the information. Organisms communicate with one another in a host of different ways. Signals can be auditory, chemical, visual, tactile, or a combination of these. Communication is a critical behavioral adaptation that promotes survival, growth, and reproduction.

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

On the (limited) use of touchscreen-based behavioural and cognitive research with dogs: potential causes and future directions.

Animal cognition·2026

Same author

An easy way to improve lab meetings.

eLife·2026

Same author

Gradually, then suddenly: the precarious position of UK preclinical neuroscience.

Brain : a journal of neurology·2026

Same author

Record phenological responses to climate change in three sympatric penguin species.

The Journal of animal ecology·2026

Same author

Diagnosing confounded Bateman gradients.

Evolution; international journal of organic evolution·2025

Same author

Correction: To know or not to know? Curiosity and the value of prospective information in animals.

Learning & behavior·2025

Same journal

Effects of highly pathogenic avian influenza on the behaviour and survival of a colonial breeding seabird.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2026

Same journal

A special feature highlighting impactful science from countries and regions underrepresented in Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2026

Same journal

Religious rituals in the United Kingdom and Brazil are associated with increased social bonding and pain threshold.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2026

Same journal

Limited evidence that reputation-based partner choice facilitates information sharing in humans.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2026

Same journal

Phylogenomics resolves the century-old 'Zoraptera problem': Zoraptera as the earliest diverging lineage of Polyneoptera.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2026

Same journal

Paternal dietary macronutrients affect the seminal vesicle fluid proteome and fetal development: a geometric framework for nutrition study in mice.

Proceedings. Biological sciences·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 23, 2025

A Standardized Protocol for Preference Testing to Assess Fish Welfare

A Standardized Protocol for Preference Testing to Assess Fish Welfare

Published on: February 22, 2020

Do goldfish like to be informed?

Victor Ajuwon^1,2, Tiago Monteiro^1,3,4,5, Mark E Walton⁶

¹Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3RB, UK.

Proceedings. Biological Sciences

|May 21, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Goldfish do not prefer predictable outcomes over unpredictable ones, even when the information is free. This suggests that associative learning alone may not explain information-seeking behavior observed in other species.

Keywords:

goldfish information-seeking non-instrumental information observing response paradoxical choice suboptimal choice

More Related Videos

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions

Published on: May 2, 2019

Assays to Detect UV-reflecting Structures and Determine their Importance in Mate Preference using the Sailfin Molly Poecilia latipinna

Assays to Detect UV-reflecting Structures and Determine their Importance in Mate Preference using the Sailfin Molly Poecilia latipinna

Published on: September 14, 2016

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 23, 2025

A Standardized Protocol for Preference Testing to Assess Fish Welfare

A Standardized Protocol for Preference Testing to Assess Fish Welfare

Published on: February 22, 2020

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions

Published on: May 2, 2019

Assays to Detect UV-reflecting Structures and Determine their Importance in Mate Preference using the Sailfin Molly Poecilia latipinna

Assays to Detect UV-reflecting Structures and Determine their Importance in Mate Preference using the Sailfin Molly Poecilia latipinna

Published on: September 14, 2016

Area of Science:

Comparative psychology
Animal behavior
Neuroscience

Background:

Many species, including humans, birds, and mammals, show a preference for predictable future events, even without direct benefits.
It remains unclear if this preference stems from basic associative learning or a more complex information-seeking drive akin to curiosity.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate if goldfish, which share reinforcement learning mechanisms with birds and mammals, exhibit a preference for predictable outcomes.
To determine if basic conditioning processes are sufficient to explain paradoxical preferences for unusable information.

Main Methods:

Goldfish were presented with two choices, both offering a delay and a chance of reward.
One option provided a stimulus correlated with the upcoming outcome (informative), while the other provided an uncorrelated stimulus (non-informative).

Main Results:

Goldfish could distinguish between the informative and non-informative options.
However, goldfish did not develop a preference for the informative option over the non-informative one.

Conclusions:

Associative learning mechanisms in goldfish are insufficient to generate preferences for outcome predictability.
These findings challenge the idea that informative preferences are merely a byproduct of associative processes and suggest specialized information-seeking mechanisms may have evolved in some vertebrates.