Goldfish only have a three-second memory
It's repeated so often it barely gets questioned — the reason goldfish seem content circling the same bare bowl forever, you're told, is that they forget it moments after swimming through it. Is that actually how goldfish memory works?
Myth or fact? Reveal
Myth. It's a myth. Fish-cognition researchers, including Culum Brown at Macquarie University, have shown goldfish can learn tasks and retain them for months; early conditioning experiments found memories lasting four to five months, not seconds.