Guppies, Poecilia reticulata, perceive a reversed Delboeuf illusion

Lucon‐Xiccato, Tyrone; Santacà, Maria; Petrazzini, Maria Elena Miletto; Agrillo, Christian; Dadda, Marco

doi:10.1007/s10071-019-01237-6

Cited by 23 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Indeed, in some cases animals have been shown to perceive visual illusions in a similar way to humans (Murayama et al ., ), although other studies find no effect, or an effect in the opposite direction (e.g. Parron & Fagot, ; Lucon‐Xiccato et al ., ). This is, of course, intrinsically informative if the purpose of the study is to examine animal cognition, but it illustrates the risks associated with assuming that animal perception is similar to our own.…”

Section: Stimuli Presented During Testsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Designing mate choice experiments

Dougherty

2020

Biological Reviews

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The important role that mate choice plays in the lives of animals is matched by the large and active research field dedicated to studying it. Researchers work on a wide range of species and behaviours, and so the experimental approaches used to measure animal mate choice are highly variable. Importantly, these differences are often not purely cosmetic; they can strongly influence the measurement of choice, for example by varying the behaviour of animals during tests, the aspects of choice actually measured, and statistical power. Consideration of these effects are important when comparing results among studies using different types of test, or when using laboratory results to predict animal behaviour in natural populations. However, these effects have been underappreciated by the mate choice literature to date. I focus on five key experimental considerations that may influence choice: (i) should mating be allowed to occur, or should a proxy behavioural measure of preference be used instead? (ii) Should subjects be given a choice of options? (iii) Should each subject be tested more than once, either with the same or different stimuli? (iv) When given a choice, how many options should the subject choose between? (v) What form should the experimental stimuli take? I discuss the practical advantages and disadvantages of common experimental approaches, and how they may influence the measurement of mate choice in systematic ways. Different approaches often influence the ability of animals to perceive and compare stimuli presented during tests, or the perceived costs and benefits of being choosy. Given that variation in the design of mate choice experiments is likely unavoidable, I emphasise that there is no single 'correct' approach to measuring choice across species, although ecological relevance is crucial if the aim is to understand how choice acts in natural populations. I also highlight the need for quantitative estimates of the sizes of potentially important effects, without which we cannot make informed design decisions.Biological Reviews 95 (2020) 759-781

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Section: Stimuli Presented During Testsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Designing mate choice experiments

Dougherty

2020

Biological Reviews

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“…Here, we used an innovative automated operant conditioning procedure that permitted us to present hundreds of trials, but we cannot exclude that, even though we delivered a very limited amount of food for each correct trial, the extensive operant conditioning procedure that characterizes Skinner boxes is intrinsically less efficient in cold-blooded vertebrates compared to mammals and birds, which can often reach 80%-90% accuracy and are even able to perform thousands of trials [67,68]. It is worth noting that our subjects were also fed once a day in their home tanks because a similar feeding schedule was successfully used in other cognitive tasks with fish [69,70]. In the case of our extensive training, however, this might have reduced the motivation to search for food.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Brain Lateralization and Anxiety-Like Behaviour in an Extensive Operant Conditioning Task in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

et al. 2019

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Several studies in mammals, birds, and fish have documented better cognitive abilities associated with an asymmetrical distribution of cognitive functions in the two halves of the brain, also known as ‘functional brain lateralization’. However, the role of brain lateralization in learning abilities is still unclear. In addition, although recent studies suggest a link between some personality traits and accuracy in cognitive tasks, the relation between anxiety and learning skills in Skinner boxes needs to be clarified. In the present study, we tested the impact of brain lateralization and anxiety-like behaviour in the performance of an extensive operant conditioning task. Zebrafish tested in a Skinner box underwent 500 trials in a colour discrimination task (red vs. yellow and green vs. blue). To assess the degree of lateralization, fish were observed in a detour test in the presence of a dummy predator, and anxiety-like behaviour was studied by observing scototaxis response in an experimental tank divided into light and dark compartments. Although the low performance in the colour discrimination task did not permit the drawing of firm conclusions, no correlation was found between the accuracy in the colour discrimination task and the behaviour in the detour and scototaxis tests. This suggests that neither different degrees of asymmetries in brain lateralization nor anxiety may significantly impact the learning skills of zebrafish.

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“…The experimental design included a sample size of 12 tested subjects, a sample size previously adopted in similar studies in the same species [e.g. 19,20]. However, as is true of any training procedure, some animals had to be discharged, because they stopped participating in the experiment (4 subjects) or failed to achieve any of the learning criteria necessary to pass onto the test phase (6 subjects).…”

Section: Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two halves are less than the whole: Evidence of a length bisection bias in fish (Poecilia reticulata)

Santacà

Agrillo

2020

PLoS ONE

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The horizontal-vertical (HV) illusion is characterized by a tendency to overestimate the length of vertically-arranged objects. Comparative research is primarily confined to primates, a range of species that, although arboreal, often explore their environment moving along the horizontal axis. Such behaviour may have led to the development of asymmetrical perceptual mechanisms to make relative size judgments of objects placed vertically and horizontally. We observed the susceptibility to the HV illusion in fish, whose ability to swim along the horizontal and vertical plane permits them to scan objects' size equally on both axes. Guppies (Poecilia reticulata) were trained to select the longer orange line to receive a food reward. In the test phase, two arrays, containing two same-sized lines were presented, one horizontally and the other vertically. Black lines were also included in each pattern to generate the perception of an inverted T-shape (where a horizontal line is bisected by a vertical one) or an L-shape (no bisection). No bias was observed in the L-shape, which supports the idea of differential perceptual mechanisms for primates and fish. In the inverted Tshape, guppies estimated the bisected line as shorter, providing the first evidence of a length bisection bias in a fish species.

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Guppies, Poecilia reticulata, perceive a reversed Delboeuf illusion

Cited by 23 publications

References 50 publications

Designing mate choice experiments

Designing mate choice experiments

The Impact of Brain Lateralization and Anxiety-Like Behaviour in an Extensive Operant Conditioning Task in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Two halves are less than the whole: Evidence of a length bisection bias in fish (Poecilia reticulata)

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