Zebrafish is an emerging model in the study of brain function; however, knowledge about its behaviour and cognition is incomplete. Previous studies suggest this species has limited ability in visual learning tasks compared to other teleosts. In this study, we systematically examined zebrafish’s ability to learn to discriminate colour, shape, size, and orientation of figures using an appetitive conditioning paradigm. Contrary to earlier reports, the zebrafish successfully completed all tasks. Not all discriminations were learned with the same speed and accuracy. Subjects discriminated the size of objects better than their shape or colour. In all three tasks, they were faster and more accurate when required to discriminate between outlined figures than between filled figures. With stimuli consisting of outlines, the learning performance of zebrafish was comparable to that observed in higher vertebrates. Zebrafish easily learned a horizontal–vertical discrimination task, but like many other vertebrates, they had great difficulty discriminating a figure from its mirror image. Performance was more accurate for subjects reinforced on one stimulus (green over red, triangle over circle, large over small). Unexpectedly, these stimulus biases occurred only when zebrafish were tested with filled figures, suggesting some causal relationship between stimulus preference, learning bias and performance.

斑马鱼是研究大脑功能的新兴模型；然而，关于它的行为和认知的知识是不完整的。先前的研究表明，与其他硬骨鱼类相比，该物种在视觉学习任务中的能力有限。在这项研究中，我们系统地检查了斑马鱼使用食欲调节范式学习区分颜色、形状、大小和方向的能力。与之前的报道相反，斑马鱼成功完成了所有任务。并非所有的区分都是以相同的速度和准确性学习的。受试者比物体的形状或颜色更能区分物体的大小。在所有三项任务中，当需要区分轮廓图形时，它们比区分填充图形更快、更准确。随着由轮廓组成的刺激，斑马鱼的学习表现与在高等脊椎动物中观察到的表现相当。斑马鱼很容易学会了横向-纵向辨别任务，但与许多其他脊椎动物一样，它们很难从镜像中辨别出一个人物。对于在一种刺激下强化的受试者（绿色对红色，三角形对圆圈，大对小）的表现更准确。出乎意料的是，这些刺激偏差只有在用填充数字测试斑马鱼时才会发生，这表明刺激偏好、学习偏差和表现之间存在某种因果关系。对于在一种刺激下强化的受试者（绿色对红色，三角形对圆圈，大对小）的表现更准确。出乎意料的是，这些刺激偏差只有在用填充数字测试斑马鱼时才会发生，这表明刺激偏好、学习偏差和表现之间存在某种因果关系。对于在一种刺激下强化的受试者（绿色对红色，三角形对圆圈，大对小）的表现更准确。出乎意料的是，这些刺激偏差只有在用填充数字测试斑马鱼时才会发生，这表明刺激偏好、学习偏差和表现之间存在某种因果关系。