Response acquisition by Siamese fighting fish (Betta splendens) with delayed visual reinforcement.
Delayed reinforcement can create a new response without any prior training or bridging stimulus.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Davis et al. (1994) worked with Siamese fighting fish. The fish had to swim through a ring.
After the fish swam, they saw their own mirror image. The mirror came on 0, 8, 16, or 32 seconds later.
No food, no clicker, no shaping. Just the delayed mirror as the only reward.
What they found
All fish learned to swim through the ring. Longer waits made them swim less often.
Even with a 32-second delay, the new response still took hold.
How this fits with other research
Reiss et al. (1993) got the same result with rats. The rats pressed a lever for food after an 8-second delay. Both studies show new skills can grow without immediate pay.
LeSage et al. (1996) later added d-amphetamine to the rat lever-press task. The drug did not stop learning, even with 8-second delays. This backs up the fish finding across species and with added drug.
Byrne et al. (2019) went further. They showed delayed food can even shape how long a rat holds the lever down. The fish paper opened the door; Byrne widened it to response duration.
Why it matters
You do not need instant treats to teach a brand-new skill. If a learner loves a delayed stimulus—like a video clip, a song, or a mirror—use it. Start with short waits, then stretch the delay. The response will still grow, just a bit slower. This frees you from carrying food or clickers every second.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Pick one loved delayed stimulus (song clip, mirror, video) and teach a simple response with it, starting at 3 s delay.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Male Siamese fighting fish, Betta splendens, swam through a ring in an aquarium, breaking a photocell beam and initiating an unsignaled, resetting delay interval. Following delays of 0 s, 10 s, or 25 s, a 15-s mirror presentation released an aggressive display by the fish. Swimming through the ring increased in the absence of either a period of acclimatization to the reinforcer (analogous to magazine training when appetitive reinforcers are used) or explicit training of the response by the experimenters. Response rates were a decreasing function of delay duration. Other fish exposed to a schedule of response-independent mirror presentations failed to acquire and maintain the response. The results demonstrate the robustness and generality of the phenomenon of response acquisition with delayed reinforcement. They further qualify earlier observations about behavioral mechanisms involved in the phenomenon.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1994 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1994.61-35