Groups of goldfish with forebrain ablation and the olfactory tract sectioned were taught a food-motivated nondiscriminative choice in a Y-maze. Criterion choice behavior was followed by successive reversal learning. Both groups successfully acquired each task but the fish with forebrain ablation were slower to eliminate errors in the reversals than were the fish with the olfactory tract sectioned. There were no latency differences between groups on any tasks. It was concluded that the teleost forebrain may, in part, function to provide inhibitory control over previously acquired responses.

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4 normal and 4 forebrain-ablated fish were food-reinforced for correct choice in a circle-square discrimination task; both groups readily learned the task. When the fish were tested after 8 days of a practice-free retention interval, both groups performed equally well and at the same level as their earlier asymptote. The results of this study indicate that long-term memory function of teleosts is not affected by forebrain ablation.