Re: Do Betta Fish react to music?

Dear KK-

Thank-you for your interesting question! I've done some research, and it looks like you will be the first to determine if beta fish respond to music. Isn't that exciting?

As you mentioned, fish CAN hear, and different species of fish hear at different sound intensities. From what I've read in the research that's out there, the closest study to the one you're describing was done with koi, the big Japanese goldfish.

This is their abstract, which I found by searching on PubMed. (PubMed is a great resource for finding out scientific information. Sometimes the papers you encounter will be a bit complex, but if you want to know what's currently happening in the scientific community, this is a great place to start.)

Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput. 1999 Aug;31(3):470-8. Reliable operant apparatus for fish: audio stimulus generator, response button, and pellet- dispensing nipple. Chase AR, Hill W. Rowland Institute for Science, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. chase@rowland.org

As part of ongoing research into the ability of koi to categorize complex auditory stimuli, we have had to develop novel apparatus. The stimulus generator presents sound from two CD drives under computer control through a new underwater speaker. The operant manipulandum is a horizontal button that eliminates spurious triggering by water turbulence and problematic response topographies. The button's design has also been adapted for use by tilapia in an aquacultural food-preference study. The feeder uses a nipple to dispense food pellets reliably under water. In this paper, the apparatus is described in detail. Also discussed are methodological issues related to its design, as well as its usage in a pilot study in which koi learned to discriminate music from silence by using a single manipulandum with food reinforcement.

So what they're saying is that they devised an underwater system to train koi to respond to audible cues. Pretty cool. Other resarchers have looked into whether noise impacts fish hearing or how fish communicate with each other (references 1-3), but I couldn't find any information that directly looked at the impact of music on fish behavior.

Having done some behavioral research, one thing you may want to consider in your project is how are you going to measure a "response"? Are you going to count the amount of time the fish spends swimming around, or are you expecting to see it swim toward or away from the source of the music? Are you going to use just one kind of music, or various kinds, and measure the time spent actively swimming, or still? You may want to set up a behavioral research sheet, where you create blocks of time, and mark what the fish is doing during the block of time (every 5 minutes, for example), and do these observations with and without music. You want to make sure to vary your data collection such that you do music first, or no music first. You also want to control for behavioral cycles during the day, such that you collect data on music/no music in the morning, afternoon and evening, so you aren't fooled by the fish being nonresponsive during one part of the day.

Good luck, and I hope this helps!
Sincerely,
ILD
MadScientist

References:
1) J Acoust Soc Am. 2003 Jul;114(1):512-21. Acoustic communication in two freshwater gobies: ambient noise and short-range propagation in shallow streams. Lugli M, Fine ML. Dipartimento di Biologia Evolutiva e Funzionale, Universita di Parma, Parma, Italy. lugli@biol.unipr.it

2) J Acoust Soc Am. 2003 Apr;113(4 Pt 1):2170-9. Diversity in noise- induced temporary hearing loss in otophysine fishes. Amoser S, Ladich F. Institute of Zoology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.