期刊
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY
卷 211, 期 -, 页码 -出版社
ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105223
关键词
Tool Innovation; Tool Making; Problem Solving; Small-Scale Societies; Cross-Cultural; Cognitive Development
资金
- Department of Cultural and Comparative Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
The study found that prior exposure to pipe cleaners did not improve children's performance in the hook task. Bondongo children innovated more hooks than BaYaka children, possibly due to their participation in fishing. Observations and interviews revealed that children imagined and innovated novel uses for pipe cleaners outside the experimental context, such as headbands, bracelets, and suspenders.
Tool innovation has played a crucial role in human adaptation. Yet, this capacity seems to arise late in development. Before 8 years of age, many children struggle to solve the hook task, a common measure of tool innovation that requires modification of a straight pipe cleaner into a hook to extract a prize. Whether these findings are generalizable beyond postindustrialized Western children remains unclear. In many small-scale subsistence societies, children engage in daily tool use and modification, experiences that theoretically could enhance innovative capabilities. Although two previous studies found no differences in innovative ability between children from Western and small-scale subsistence societies, these did not account for the latter's inexperience with pipe cleaners. Thus, the current study investigated how familiarity with pipe cleaners affected hook task success in 132 Congolese BaYaka foragers (57 girls) and 59 Bondongo fisher-farmers (23 girls) aged 4-12 years. We contextualized these findings within children's interview responses and naturalistic observations of how pipe cleaners were incorporated into daily activities. Counter to our expectation, prior exposure did not improve children's performance during the hook task. Bondongo children innovated significantly more hooks than BaYaka children, possibly because they participate in hook-andline fishing. Observations and interviews showed that children imagined and innovated novel uses for pipe cleaners outside the experimental context, including headbands, bracelets, and suspenders. We relate our findings to ongoing debates regarding systematic versus unsystematic tool innovation, the importance of prior experience for the ontogeny of tool innovation, and the external validity of experimental paradigms. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).
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