Humans and other animals with long-term memory tend to be addict to information — they grab at any information, whether it is useful or useless. Interestingly. Goldfishes don’t.

Goldfishes, too, are capable of remembering long passed experiences, but they are simply not interested in news that doesn’t make sense to them, as a recent study finds [1].

Why is that? The researchers put forward some hypotheses to be tested yet. Maybe goldfishes have a lower tolerance for frustration and therefore avoid to choose a situation which could turn our disappointing. Or they can deal better with uncertainty then we do and therefore do not need to know everything. The typical forage behaviour of a species could also play a role in its hunger for information. Interesting questions; the answers cloud also shed more light on our own behaviour in front of information.

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Source:
[1] Do goldfish like to be informed? (Preprint)

First published on 25.06.2024 on Facebook