Bold zebrafish (Danio rerio) learn faster in a classical associative learning task

Animals vary between individuals in their ability to learn and some sources of this variation can be the learning process and the individual's personality type. We investigated the relationship between learning and the bold-shy behavioral type by comparing performance of bold and shy zebrafish in conditioned place preference (CPP) and 2-choice tasks. Bold zebrafish learned significantly faster than the shy fish but there were no differences in their final performance in the CPP. When tested in the 2-choice task, we found no clear evidence of learning, however bold fish made more initial choices than shy fish. Overall, our study suggests that bold zebrafish tend to be faster learners when compared to shy zebrafish. The lack of differences in the final change in behavior suggests that learning differences may be due to how the animals initially interact with stimuli because of differences in neophobia.