Do Fish Have Feelings/emotions?

[guppy2002]

I am reading a book called 'animals make us human'. It is really good ,it's about animal welfare and keeping them happy and behaviour and stuff like that. There is a section for dogs,cats,horses,chickens, and live stock. BUT NO FISH! WHY??? Fish are animals too. 
 
The book is talks about the emotions SEEKING(curiosity basicly),PLAY,PANIC,and RAGE for the species. But what about fish? Do they have even the most basic emotions like fear and happiness?
 
 

 

[RRaquariums]

I know I'm probably going to catch flak for this but honestly I don't think fish have feelings and emotions like dogs, cats or livestock.
What I believe they have is instincts such as panic when attacked or threatened but if given the proper care they will be what we would call happy and stay much healthier as a direct result.
So no I don't believe they feel the same range of emotions as humans or even dogs and cats but that doesn't mean we shouldn't take care of them in the proper way and try to make them as healthy and safe as we can.
Same goes for any animal we chose to own simply by buying or adopting any animal, reptile or fish we have taken on the responsibility of it's care and if we can't give it the proper care then we should find someone else that can.

 

[DreamertK]

I bet they do. Since I have a gourami, it's pretty easy to gauge his emotions. I bet the standard fish emotion in our tanks is seeking/play. My gourami is always looking around for something tasty to eat. When he's curious about other creatures, he'll reach out his little arms to feel them. Right now he's staring at me staring at him, wondering. When he's scared he'll turn pale or swim off erratically. When he's pissed off he'll turn completely black. When he's aroused his belly will turn black.
 
My gudgeons are probably half and half between curious and aroused. My male is always aroused with his member hanging out, and he'll swim up to the female and vibrate the water next to her while displaying his fins. The female will become aroused and follow him back to his cave, but then she'll realize that she doesn't want anymore children and then swim off. When I put my finger up to the glass infront of them, they'll see me and show me their fins. I think it's curiosity.
 
But that's just my observations. Maybe I stare at my fish too much.

 

[DerpPH]

If you want a fish with personality go with bettas or puffers. they show a bit of emotion if you call it that

 

[star4]

I think it depends on how much time you spend with fish as to whether you see emotions or not. I rescued 2 large plecs a few years ago, both were really sick. I spent hours with them trying to get them to eat, gently holding them to feed them, today the one still will let me pet and stroke him and tickle his belly. 
 
Play: fish will play, either with you or things in the tank. My urau has a small flat bit of wood he likes to carry around the tank, my pictus cats will play peek a boo if I duck down in front of the tank they will look for me. Oscars are ones that show the most emotions, they will play can be taught tricks (mine will "give me a kiss" when I turn out his lights). When he is mad his anal fin turns bright yellow, he can sulk like a child.
 
Everyone who keeps fish see's excitement, which is an emotion. You only have to get the food pot out to see this one! I am pretty sure in the wild fish wouldnt wiggle about up and down if food was coming their way!

 

[sawickib]

I do believe fish have emotions, certainly not as complex as humans or other mammals, but they can show anger compete for mates, have hierarchies, play and show excitement and curiosity IMO. Whenever i sit next to my tank my poly's will come up to look at me right next to the glass, as well as my angels to beg for food. My nandus nandus are really funny they will go up to my geophagus thinking its another nandus and then be like woops sorry your not one of me and leaves haha they also know when im going to feed them mealworms they come up and go back in forth in the tank. Normally in the wild these fish are very timid and hidden but in my tank they stay along the top and beg for food. My angels constantly perk up at eachother with the absence of a female trying to show their dominance (i need to get more angels and find a pair) my BGK will rocket around the tank when its food time and get mad it anyone who goes near her cave haha. I just believe all fish have personalities and ways of expressing emotion everyday.

 

[malfunction]

It's scientifically "proven" that fish experience emotions. Emotion is a fairly primitive function - I'd bet that almost any organism with a brain experiences it.

I think part of the reason why many people don't think they have emotions is that they cannot communicate emotions in ways that we intuitively understand. If a person is in pain then they can shout out or cry. If a dog injures itself it can bark or whine. But what can a fish do? It has no vocal apparatus so it cannot bark, cry out or say ouch.

 

[LeeAberdeen]

It's scientifically "proven" that fish experience emotions. Emotion is a fairly primitive function - I'd bet that almost any organism with a brain experiences it.

I think part of the reason why many people don't think they have emotions is that they cannot communicate emotions in ways that we intuitively understand. If a person is in pain then they can shout out or cry. If a dog injures itself it can bark or whine. But what can a fish do? It has no vocal apparatus so it cannot bark, cry out or say ouch.

 
You can't say it's "proven" then not name your scientific source. A quote from your source or sources would be useful.
 
You say it's proven then go on to draw some sort of parallel with people or dogs in pain, but pain isn't an emotion? It's much more likely that something with a brain the size of a pea has nothing like the number of neurons needed to fire in its brain to experience anything more than an instinctive reaction but, as I have no scientific proof to back that up, I can't state that as a fact the way you've tried to. And no, the fact a fish can't speak wouldn't count as 'proof'.

 

[sawickib]

Pain is a emotion, it expresses pain and sorrow, which are expressions. Some things dont feel pain which is a evolutionary trait to help respond to the environment around them. But i have no source for this but im going to stand by malfunction on this one. When fish are caught hundreds of miles under the ocean in nets the eyes pop out of their sockets from the excessive change in pressure so fast, when they come up still flopping around, you dont think they feel pain? With no way to express it i guess someone could say that  but i believe they do.

 

[LeeAberdeen]

Pain is a emotion, it expresses pain and sorrow, which are expressions. Some things dont feel pain which is a evolutionary trait to help respond to the environment around them. But i have no source for this but im going to stand by malfunction on this one. When fish are caught hundreds of miles under the ocean in nets the eyes pop out of their sockets from the excessive change in pressure so fast, when they come up still flopping around, you dont think they feel pain? With no way to express it i guess someone could say that  but i believe they do.

Pain: "Highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury". It's a physical reaction caused by nerve sensors, nothing to do with emotions. Yes, you're right, pain does express, er, pain.
 
Where did I say fish don't feel pain?

 

[mark4785]

Fish have basic emotions driven entirely by instinct because they do not have 2 cerebral hemispheres connected together by a corpus callosum. This is the place where complex processing of stimulus takes place resulting in ideas and interpretations. Since a fish cannot interpret and develop ideas of what constitutes an emotion within a cerebral hemisphere, it must form its emotions in the parts of the brain that it does have, a hippocampus and an amygdala which are much older and instinctual parts of a brain.
 
My guess is that if something 'upset' a fish, such as predatory fish, the amygdala would be activated causing the fish to feel a sense of instinctual fear and the hippocampus would help the fish go about fleeing because it is the part of the brain that is good with spatial navigation.

 

[star4]

It's scientifically "proven" that fish experience emotions. Emotion is a fairly primitive function - I'd bet that almost any organism with a brain experiences it.

I think part of the reason why many people don't think they have emotions is that they cannot communicate emotions in ways that we intuitively understand. If a person is in pain then they can shout out or cry. If a dog injures itself it can bark or whine. But what can a fish do? It has no vocal apparatus so it cannot bark, cry out or say ouch.

 
 
It has not been proven that fish make sound, but maybe not all sound waves have been detected. However there are many species of fish that do make a vocalisation, well sound that you can hear.. If you have kept catfish, particularly pictus catfish and had to catch one they make a buzzing sound, this buzzing noise can also be heard when they are feeding or playing/chasing each other. I have noticed it is a different noise from feeding/playing to being caught one being a happy noise, the other being a stress buzzing noise.  Clown loach also make clicking noises when they get excitable.
 
Just because an animal does not make a sound does not mean it cannot communicate, many fish change their colouration from light to dark depending on their mood, its just a clear a signal as "go away"

 

[sawickib]

Just because an animal does not make a sound does not mean it cannot communicate, many fish change their colouration from light to dark depending on their mood, its just a clear a signal as "go away"

 
 
Yea my nandus nandus do that constantly they go from a dark color to a pale pasty cream but i dont think enough people own these guys to know what it means they are awesome fish not for everyone though haha

 

[malfunction]

Given that this didn't appear in the scientific section, I didn't anticipate that references would be necessary. But I suppose it's only fair to ask me to back up my argument, especially as I so foolishly declared science was with me. Here are some links regarding fish and emotion:

http/www.amsciepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2466/pr0.1972.31.3.919
http/www.amsciepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2466/pr0.1967.20.1.71
http/www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159104000206
http/www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10888700701729106#/doi/abs/10.1080/10888700701729106
http/www.int-res.com/articles/dao_oa/d075p131.pdf
http/www.int-res.com/articles/dao_oa/d075p131.pdf
http/link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F1744-9081-6-20

You say it's proven then go on to draw some sort of parallel with people or dogs in pain, but pain isn't an emotion?

I think you missed my point here. My argument is not that pain is an emotion, but rather that human beings have a tendency to infer the experiences of other creatures based on sound-related communication. Often this takes the form of speech but can also include other phenomena (e.g laughter). You'll note that many of the links I included above relate to one specific emotion - fear. This is because it is one of the easiest emotions to elicit (you simply administer a painful stimulus), and also often results in highly observable behaviour change in the subject (e.g the subject freezes, runs away, etc..) So, when I mentioned pain in my previous post, it is not because it is an emotion, but because it is often closely linked to fear (which, in case you were wondering, is an emotion).

It's much more likely that something with a brain the size of a pea has nothing like the number of neurons needed to fire in its brain to experience anything more than an instinctive reaction but, as I have no scientific proof to back that up, I can't state that as a fact the way you've tried to

You're wise not to claim this fact. Not least because there is no scientific basis to it. The absolute size of an animal's brain is not linked to its intelligence, nor it's ability to experience emotions (which incidentally requires relatively little brain power). Think about this for a second. An elephant's brain is significantly larger than a human's, yet I would be very surprised if you started arguing that an elephant will win the Nobel prize any time soon. I know you like your references, so here's one for you regarding intelligence and brain size:

http/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-835X.1983.tb00900.x/abstract

And no, the fact a fish can't speak wouldn't count as 'proof'.

I don't even know what you're talking about here, but I'll reword the point I was making as it was obviously unclear...generally, fish do not talk (I'm sorry, but I have no references for this so you'll just have to take my word for it); this makes it more difficult for human beings to tell if they have emotions because it is not possible to simply ask them; this in turn means some people simply assume they have no emotions. I hope that part at least has been cleared up.

To the OP, sorry if your thread's been hijacked and gone in a different direction than you intended. For what it's worth, I agree with you that fish do have emotions. Clearly not everybody shares that sentiment, but it's a free country and everyone's entitled to their opinion.

 

[LeeAberdeen]

Given that this didn't appear in the scientific section, I didn't anticipate that references would be necessary. But I suppose it's only fair to ask me to back up my argument, especially as I so foolishly declared science was with me. Here are some links regarding fish and emotion:

http/www.amsciepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2466/pr0.1972.31.3.919
http/www.amsciepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2466/pr0.1967.20.1.71
http/www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159104000206
http/www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10888700701729106#/doi/abs/10.1080/10888700701729106
http/www.int-res.com/articles/dao_oa/d075p131.pdf
http/www.int-res.com/articles/dao_oa/d075p131.pdf
http/link.springer.com/article/10.1186%2F1744-9081-6-20

You say it's proven then go on to draw some sort of parallel with people or dogs in pain, but pain isn't an emotion?

I think you missed my point here. My argument is not that pain is an emotion, but rather that human beings have a tendency to infer the experiences of other creatures based on sound-related communication. Often this takes the form of speech but can also include other phenomena (e.g laughter). You'll note that many of the links I included above relate to one specific emotion - fear. This is because it is one of the easiest emotions to elicit (you simply administer a painful stimulus), and also often results in highly observable behaviour change in the subject (e.g the subject freezes, runs away, etc..) So, when I mentioned pain in my previous post, it is not because it is an emotion, but because it is often closely linked to fear (which, in case you were wondering, is an emotion).

It's much more likely that something with a brain the size of a pea has nothing like the number of neurons needed to fire in its brain to experience anything more than an instinctive reaction but, as I have no scientific proof to back that up, I can't state that as a fact the way you've tried to

You're wise not to claim this fact. Not least because there is no scientific basis to it. The absolute size of an animal's brain is not linked to its intelligence, nor it's ability to experience emotions (which incidentally requires relatively little brain power). Think about this for a second. An elephant's brain is significantly larger than a human's, yet I would be very surprised if you started arguing that an elephant will win the Nobel prize any time soon. I know you like your references, so here's one for you regarding intelligence and brain size:

http/onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-835X.1983.tb00900.x/abstract

And no, the fact a fish can't speak wouldn't count as 'proof'.

I don't even know what you're talking about here, but I'll reword the point I was making as it was obviously unclear...generally, fish do not talk (I'm sorry, but I have no references for this so you'll just have to take my word for it); this makes it more difficult for human beings to tell if they have emotions because it is not possible to simply ask them; this in turn means some people simply assume they have no emotions. I hope that part at least has been cleared up.

To the OP, sorry if your thread's been hijacked and gone in a different direction than you intended. For what it's worth, I agree with you that fish do have emotions. Clearly not everybody shares that sentiment, but it's a free country and everyone's entitled to their opinion.
 

Only read them briefly, admittedly, because I have a life, but none of them seemed to refer to emotion, but rather instinctive behaviour such as fleeing through fear which no-one would ever deny fish possess. You only need to walk up to your tank too quickly with your arms waving about a bit to see how instinctive a fish's primordial fear is. It does, however, have nothing to with the OP's original question of "emotions like happiness", which I was referring to, and what most people think of when discussing 'emotion'. The fact you've hijacked the thread with your Mills and Boon definition of 'pain' is where the confusion lies.
 
Many of them, also, were dealing with intelligence, not emotion. Go back to those links if you've got time and pull out a single quote saying fish have emotions. Then, if one exists, we can start to look at how the study was conducted and by whom to see if it's a creditable source.
 
Again, no-one said what you mention, namely that the largest brain equates to the most intelligent animal, but your example of an elephant is a good one, because they are very intelligent, much more intelligent than a fish, and there would generally be a correlation throughout nature between brain size and overall intelligence. Not that that's got anything to do with emotion. "It's ability to experience emotions" is highly debatable, you're right, but your use of the possessive pronounce "It's" with an apostrophe is undoubtedly wrong, because its already-possessive nature means it doesn't require one.