I went to a very enjoyable talk yesterday about fish responses to chemical cues that are generated as the result of predator attack. It had some interesting data to back up the general idea among fear researchers that once a stimulus is paired with a fear response, the stimulus reponse hangs around for quite a long while. For minnows, a single stimulus response pairing led to changed behaviour up to 9 months later. Wow. The interesting point that the researcher made was that for various fish species in the wild, they have to unlearn this stimulus response pairing because, as they grow bigger, the things that used to eat them no longer can, and they just waste energy freaking out.
Think this doesn’t apply
to us ‘higher brained’ animals? It probably does. According to these
researchers, though, getting the situation under conscious control may
help. And according
to HowStuffWorks (a reliable source?) you can unlearn the
stimulus-response pair by pairing the stimulus with non-fearful responses.
That’s how the whole exposure therapy to phobias is supposed to work.
Mountain climbing here I come. And
maybe that’s how it works for the fish, too. Once they’re the big fish in
the pond, they soon learn that those other (now puny) fish just aren’t
going to get them. In fact, it’s probably the other way around… “I’m
going to eat you little fishy…”
posted at 11:55 on Sat, 13 Jan, 2007 |
path: /living
All material copyrighted by Jen Schellinck. All rights reserved.