Learning ability, cognitive capacity and welfare of farmed fish

This project will give new knowledge and basic understanding about learning ability and cognitive capacity in farmed fish and the function of their motivational systems. This knowledge has high relevance for the assessment of welfare, since only sentient (conscious) beings are considered as moral objects and relevant for welfare assessment. A fundamental property for sentience is a declarative memory, which can be judged by studies of learning ability. Learning ability has also high relevance for how farm ed fish are able to cope with the aquaculture environment and how we should design rearing units and feeding methods to the fishs coping ability and cognitive capacity. The project will focus on cognitive capacity in cod (Gadus morhua) and carry out a s eries of experiments using classical conditioning paradigm to study time, place, sequence, reversal, and reward-value learning.