Ignorant crowds blindly following a leader as key to a democratic process sounds like a political joke, but for golden shiners it seems like a reality.

When a school of a few shiners trained to associate yellow (A color golden shiners readilly respond to) with food, are mixed with more who respond to blue for food, usually the dominant color wins out, but adding untrained shiners to the mix kept the choices more even.

At least according to a study I found here http://www.livescien...-ignorance.html

I wonder if their is a link to golden shiners likelyness to respond to the color yellow, and the presence of yellow coloring in some golden shiners.

I wish that they had drawn their minority/majority lines along a stronger division than 5 to 6. Yes, technically 5 is a minority compared to 6, but not in the same ratio that they were saying the minority opinion affects votes. If I was the reviwer for the journal where this paper was published, I would have asked to see the same experiment repeated with 2 to 9 ratio (the same total number of fish, but with the minority a smaller percentage of the whole). It would be interesting to see if the results are the same. But then again, the reviewers at Science probably know what they're talking about. *shrugs*

Edited by EricaWieser, 16 December 2011 - 01:21 AM.

I'm guessing they chose the close ratio because it actually emphasizes the credibility of the results when the "non-trained" shiners were introduced by giving the minority group the advantages of a color that they are naturally attracted to and the closer ratio. When the 10 non-trained shiners go against their natural inclinations and follow a small majority it makes a more profound statement than it would if they followed a large majority, even if it was only 60% of the time. It would be interesting though to know just how few of the "yellow trained" shiners it would take to sway the whole school.

Before seeing the results, I think I would have probably guessed just the opposite action from the "non-trained" shiners. I would have probably guessed that as the number of shiners in the school increased, it would be more difficult for them to distinguish between 5 and 6, and as the number of non-trained shiners increased they would be more likely to go with their natural inclination of yellow instead of following toward blue. Evidently, more eyes make for keener observation. It is what keeps them alive after all.

BTW, to apply this to humans as the text implies, the results are pretty much just what I'd expect, but I had a little higher hopes for the shiners. LOL.

Interesting article, thanks for posting it.

Steve.

I wonder how long it'd take them to associate both yellow and blue with food and to move between the groups?

Also I have seen yellow colored golden shiners before, not too common but I have. Is their attraction to yellow somehow a cause for selecting for this color? Maybe yellow males get more mates in populations where the color occurs.