The shocking secret of goldfish memory
Think your goldfish can’t remember one moment to the next? Think again. A schoolboy scientist in Australia has proven that goldfish have a far better memory than the three-second retention span of urban legend.
Roy Stokes, a pupil at the Australian Science and Mathematics School in Adelaide, performed his goldfish memory experiments to prove that fish should not be cooped up in too-tiny tanks:
“We are told that a goldfish has a memory span of less than three seconds and that no matter how small its tank is, it will always discover new places and objects,” Rory said.
“I wanted to challenge this theory as I believe it is a myth intended to make us feel less guilty about keeping fish in small tanks.”
His experiment involved training the fish to move towards a special beacon that he flashed 30 seconds before feeding them. Over several weeks the fish learned to swim towards the beacon in anticipation of the food, eventually doing so within a few seconds.
Roy then turned off the beacon for a week before restarting. The goldfish immediately responded to it again, proving their memory of the beacon’s relevance to any respectable goldfish’s favourite subject - food - was still intact.
“My experiments showed that goldfish have the mental capabilities to learn and remember fairly complex concepts and they can retain that knowledge for at least a number of days.”
The lesson? If you get a paranoid feeling your goldfish recognise you: you’re probably right.
Click here to learn more goldfish secrets!
Filed in: News
Mar 6th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I’ve got something to add.
Damn, I forgot what I was gonna say.
Mar 7th, 2008 at 9:45 am
wow, that’s really interesting. but do his findings really mean that goldfish need bigger tanks?
Mar 10th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Okay, so there’s no doubt that fish have memory. Anyone who has every kept fish could tell scientists that (okay, I accept that this was just a small boy). But the real question is whether or not their memory means they have feelings/emotions? I think very unlikely myself, much as I love my fish.
Mar 29th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Thank you RickieB : your comment was so predictable, but had me in stitches!!
Oct 30th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
I can’t remember the last time I forgot!
Nice web site BTW!
Jan 10th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
My goldfish recognize that I am the one who feeds them. My husband works right next to them all day but they don’t give him the time of day since he doesn’t feed them. Any time I come downstairs, they go nuts thinking it is time to eat!
Mar 8th, 2009 at 9:49 am
just to let you all i have to do that experiment in pysch class. The one thing i can think of is there is a difference between short term and long term memory so chances are a goldfish has a short term memory of 3-4 seconds. But the long term memory is easily longer.
Mar 8th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
i know that goldfish have a good memory as i go to feed my fish when they go nuts only to discover that my partner just fed them 10 minutes before.i have now started to ask if he has already fed the fish.lol….no they haven’t forgotten they have just been fed because they know not to try and mooch off the one that has just fed them….they have gotten away with it a few times as well……who are the clever ones in my house.
Apr 30th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
my gold fish always come screaming to the glass when I go by. and i talk to them too. I know they recognize me.
Jul 18th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I’ve trained my goldfish that when the lamp over her tank is turned on, it’s feeding time, and she waits near the top of the water for her food. She also knows that when the filter’s turned off, it’s water changing time because she hides in the corner (my boyfriend likes to dump the water straight from the bucket instead of using a cup to gradually fill it from the bucket like I do).
Aug 2nd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I know they recongnize me. They get excited and follow my fingure and when I just look at them and they notice me they’ll get excited and jump around. They are stationed in a bowl on my computer desk. On a shelf above me.
Aug 7th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
I agree - and what a clever schoolboy to do that experiment.
My 3 fish (a comet and 2 shurbunkins) will only “kiss” my finger when they expect food. The moment I put the can of food in front of the tank, they all come up and “beg and kiss” near the top of the tank. When I just watch them, they seem to play, but will not “kiss” my finger unless I move that can where they can see it. They do not do any of this for my husband, which tells me they know us apart.
Aug 31st, 2009 at 7:16 pm
well they must have a memory & mind that has
emotion. ive Read several times that they have stress.
so they must be thinking of something.
How do they get Stressed? they don’t work
Sep 13th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Thank you much for that imformative post.
Dec 14th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
What a bunch of cr*p!!
The article’s author said “a schoolboy scientist in Australia has proven that goldfish have a far better memory than the three-second retention span of urban legend.”
That’s bogus - if you’re calling Roy a schoolboy scientist, then the author doesn’t know what it takes to become a real scientist. A set of experiments does not make one a scientist. And experiments by one person - even a child as in this case - does not constitute “proof”.
Using this type of logic, I suppose we can definitively say (prove) that, based on the grammar and comments posted at this web-page, “an armchair scientist in the U.S. has proven that goldfish owners posting to this site have far lower grammatical and communication abilities than urban legend.”
Here are some proofs of this “scientific” finding, provided by our friendly posters above:
“well they must have a memory & mind that has
emotion. ive Read several times that they have
stress. so they must be thinking of something.
How do they get Stressed? they don’t work”
“My husband works right next to them all day but they
don’t give him the time of day since he doesn’t feed
them. Any time I come downstairs, they go nuts
thinking it is time to eat!”
“i know that goldfish have a good memory as i go to
feed my fish when they go nuts only to discover that
my partner just fed them 10 minutes before.”
“my gold fish always come screaming to the glass when
I go by. and i talk to them too.”
“Thank you much for that imformative post.”
Proof indeed. Need I go on? (for those a bit shy of neutral, there’s sarcasm in “here wirdz”). Based on this proof, it appears we need to re-vamp the U. S. educational system.
Jan 4th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
oh for gods sakes “proofin puddin”
ever hear of a title!!
the headline was a “schoolboy scientist in ausralia”
its ment to catch the readers eye.
not explain the entire story.
Apparently you dont know as much as you say you do.
you wanna “chat” more, email me at verrn8er@att.net
cause i think that your response is a bunch of cr*p.
sincerely,jake
p.s you didnt include schoolboy scientists message in ure so called “proof” because you know he already informed to every1 that he had to do the experiment in physc class.
Feb 6th, 2010 at 8:05 pm
I love my goldfish. They definitely can tell the difference between me and my wife. I feed them and they follow me back and forward in the morning til they get their meal.
They help take the stress out of the day for me.
After about a year they appear to become attracted to you. We had our prior goldfish for 8 years. He learned to eat from our fingers and was definitely affectionate.
Our prior gold fish rode in our car all the way from California to Georgia. We took him in to restaurants and hotels along the way. We even took him in to the National Civil Rights Museum, in Memphis, where a grumpy guard kept him until we finished our tour. When we arrived back at the guard station we found he was a celebrity with a group of school children around. The guard was smiling with a warm glow and asked, “Don’t you want to leave him here?”
Feb 21st, 2010 at 8:13 am
The Mythbusters already proved it as well. (because they’re cooler than some foreign scientist)
Feb 26th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Quote Richard Walker:
“Okay, so there’s no doubt that fish have memory. Anyone who has every kept fish could tell scientists that (okay, I accept that this was just a small boy). But the real question is whether or not their memory means they have feelings/emotions? I think very unlikely myself, much as I love my fish.”
end Quote
I would have to agree that the mere fact that the fish has a memory longer than 3 seconds does not ENTAIL that the fish has feelings or emotions.
But if one were to use this non-entailment as a reason to justify keeping a goldfish in a too-small container I would find their reasoning unsound.
Though the goldfish might not have human feelings or emotions there is a difference between a fish whose needs are met and a fish who can survive.
Apart from the FACT that fish in bowls without filtration do not live full-length lives the fact is that a goldfish in a 20-30gallon tank with filtration is *happier than a fish in a bowl without filtration.
why? because a goldfish with more room to swim and explore is more stimulated, and is fulfilling its purpose moreso than a fish in a tiny bowl.