Operant and classically-conditioned aggressive behavior in Siamese fighting fish.

Abstract

Male Betta splendens were conditioned to emit an operant response sequence reinforced by presentation of a model of another male Betta in aggressive display (Thompson, 1963). The color of the model with respect to the color of the subject co-varied with the rate of operant response (Thompson and Sturm, 1965). In another experiment, unconditioned aggressive display behavior elicited by the mirror image of a male Betta was brought under the control of a previously ineffective stimulus by classical conditioning. Relative rates of acquisition of four components of the display were compared. A discriminative conditioning procedure, using two different colors of light as the CS, revealed that the response was elicited specifically by the CS (Thompson and Sturm, 1966).