Australian scientists came to an unexpected conclusion from the study - fish are able to remember and recognize people's faces. Australian zoologists shared the results of the work done during the study in an article published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“The ability to distinguish between faces has always been considered a complex ability, characteristic only of primates and humans. The fact that there is a region in the human brain that is responsible for recognizing faces suggests that faces are something special to us. We decided to test this theory, and find out if an animal with a much simpler brain can distinguish the faces,”explained Kate Newport, a zoologist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.
The research team she leads has experimented with archerfish (Toxotes chatareus), which prey on insects by shooting a thin stream of water from their mouths. This unusual feature of the inhabitants of tropical seas and rivers, for which they began to be called "archer fish", became known to zoologists quite recently.
Kate Newport's team theorized that acquiring such hunting skills could give the spray fish the ability to distinguish shapes and silhouettes of various objects, and possibly even human faces.
To test their hypothesis, the researchers decided to conduct a simple experiment with archer fish: they put two photographs in front of the experimental fish, from which they had to choose one, when they shot water into which employees of the University of Queensland gave them food. The result of the experiment was very unexpected for scientists.
Zoologists have found that these fish can not only distinguish the faces of people, but are also able to remember about forty different physiognomies, associating them with food, or with its absence. At the same time, the archer fish, despite the inability of their vision to observe objects in the air and the absence of evolutionary necessity, demonstrated amazing abilities, correctly identifying the required faces in 81-86% of cases.
“The fact that these fish are capable of such tasks indicates that complex brains and powerful cognitive abilities are not needed to recognize faces. The face recognition zone in the human brain most likely arose so that we could quickly recognize a lot of unfamiliar faces, or do it better, Newport summed up.
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