Although conditioning techniques are the most powerful way to
study behavioural responses
by animals to external stimuli, the magnetic sense has proved surprisingly
resistant to
conditioning approaches. This study demonstrated learned discrimination
of magnetic field
intensity stimuli by a new species, the rainbow trout
(Oncorhynchus mykiss). In a unitary
conditioned discrimination technique, four juvenile rainbow trout were
trained to strike a
target at the end of a response bar in anticipation of food.
In successive experiments, the trout
failed to discriminate the presence and absence of a vibration stimulus,
but subsequently
learned to discriminate the presence and absence of a magnetic field intensity
anomaly (peak
intensity of 75 μTesla). The authors conclude that the necessary
conditions for training animals
to magnetic intensity are the use of spatially distinctive stimuli
and of a conditioned response that requires movement.
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