Observational learning of tool use in children: Investigating cultural spread through diffusion chains and learning mechanisms through ghost displays

Hopper, Lydia M.; Flynn, Emma; Wood, Lara A.; Whiten, Andrew

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2009.12.001

Cited by 62 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…In order to retrieve a reward (a capsule containing a sticker) in this task, a tool was used to lift (Method A) or push (Method B) an obstruction. Hopper et al (2010) found that the method demonstrated was transmitted impressively along 20 generations, twice as many as has been used previously. Cultural transmission is a long-term phenomenon, and so it is extremely informative and important that the microsocieties produced in these diffusion studies reflect this long-term, multiplegeneration transmission.…”

Section: Children's Use Of Personal and Social Information When "Foramentioning

confidence: 82%

Studying children's social learning experimentally "in the wild"

Flynn

Whiten

2010

Learning & Behavior

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Section: Children's Use Of Personal and Social Information When "Foramentioning

confidence: 82%

Studying children's social learning experimentally "in the wild"

Flynn

Whiten

2010

Learning & Behavior

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“…Hopper et al (2008Hopper et al ( , 2010 have argued that imitation and emulation tend to be applied strategically, where tasks are opaque and transparent, respectively (see also Acerbi, Tennie & Nunn, 2010). Hopper et al (2010) found that children who saw a human model demonstrate the Pan-pipes task were more successful than those who saw a ghost display, suggesting that imitative learning was very helpful for this cognitively opaque task. It appears therefore that human children are capable of using different social learning mechanisms (imitation or emulation) depending on the task complexity and information available to them (Nielsen, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Hopper et al (2010) found that up to 34% of 3-to 4-year-old children presented with the Pan-pipes apparatus learned how to operate it in a ghost display condition, although success in the live demonstration was considerably higher (77%).…”

Section: Experimental Studies Distinguishing Imitation and Emulation mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Our own research has shown that human children and chimpanzees will learn a challenging tool-use task much more effectively from live models than from a ghost display (Hopper et al, 2007;Hopper, Flynn, Wood, & Whiten, 2010). Furthermore, in the ghost display condition of Hopper et al's (2007) study, no chimpanzees learned how to operate the device in question (the "Pan-pipes" tool-use task, see also Whiten, Horner, & de Waal, 2005).…”

Section: Experimental Studies Distinguishing Imitation and Emulation mentioning

confidence: 98%

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End state copying by humans (Homo sapiens): Implications for a comparative perspective on cumulative culture.

Caldwell¹,

Schillinger²,

Evans³

et al. 2012

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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It has been proposed that the uniqueness of human cumulative culture may be attributable to humans' greater orientation toward copying the process of behavior (imitation), as compared with the products (emulation), resulting in particularly high fidelity transmission. Following from previous work indicating that adult human participants can exhibit cumulative learning on the basis of product copying alone, we now investigate whether such learning involves high fidelity transmission. Eighty adult human (Homo sapiens) participants were presented with a task previously shown to elicit cumulative learning under experimental conditions, which involved building a tower from spaghetti and modeling clay. Each participant was shown two completed towers, ostensibly built by previous participants, but actually built to prespecified designs by the experimenter. This end state information was provided either in the form of photographs, or the presence of actual towers. High fidelity matching to these end states was apparent in both demonstration conditions, even for a design that was demonstrably suboptimal with regard to the goal of the task (maximizing tower height). We conclude that, although high fidelity transmission is likely to be implicated in cumulative culture, action copying is not always necessary for this to occur. Furthermore, since chimpanzees apparently copy behavioral processes and well as products, and also transmit behavior with high fidelity, the stark absence of unequivocal examples of cumulative culture in nonhumans may be attributable to factors other than imitative ability.

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“…Even in humans, we know remarkably little about how tool making develops. While we know that children are proficient users of tools [16][17][18][19][20], we know much less about their ability to make tools.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The development of tool manufacture in humans: what helps young children make innovative tools?

Chappell

Cutting

Apperly

et al. 2013

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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We know that even young children are proficient tool users, but until recently, little was known about how they make tools. Here, we will explore the concepts underlying tool making, and the kinds of information and putative cognitive abilities required for children to manufacture novel tools. We will review the evidence for novel tool manufacture from the comparative literature and present a growing body of data from children suggesting that innovation of the solution to a problem by making a tool is a much more challenging task than previously thought. Children's difficulty with these kinds of tasks does not seem to be explained by perseveration with unmodified tools, difficulty with switching to alternative strategies, task pragmatics or issues with permission. Rather, making novel tools (without having seen an example of the required tool within the context of the task) appears to be hard, because it is an example of an ‘ill-structured problem’. In this type of ill-structured problem, the starting conditions and end goal are known, but the transformations and/or actions required to get from one to the other are not specified. We will discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the development of problem-solving in humans and other animals.

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Observational learning of tool use in children: Investigating cultural spread through diffusion chains and learning mechanisms through ghost displays

Cited by 62 publications

References 51 publications

Studying children's social learning experimentally "in the wild"

Studying children's social learning experimentally "in the wild"

End state copying by humans (Homo sapiens): Implications for a comparative perspective on cumulative culture.

The development of tool manufacture in humans: what helps young children make innovative tools?

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