The fourth dimension of tool use: temporally enduring artefacts aid primates learning to use tools

Animals in captive or laboratory settings may outperform wild animals of the same species in both frequency and diversity of tool use, a phenomenon here termed ‘captivity bias’. Although speculative at this stage, a logical conclusion from this concept is that animals whose tool-use behaviour is observed solely under natural conditions may be judged cognitively or physically inferior than if they had also been tested or observed under controlled captive conditions. In turn, this situation creates a potential problem for studies of the behaviour of extinct members of the human family tree—the hominins—as hominin cognitive abilities are often judged on material evidence of tool-use behaviour left in the archaeological record. In this review, potential factors contributing to captivity bias in primates (including increased contact between individuals engaged in tool use, guidance or shaping of tool-use behaviour by other tool-users and increased free time and energy) are identified and assessed for their possible effects on the behaviour of the Late Pleistocene hominin Homo floresiensis . The captivity bias concept provides one way to uncouple hominin tool use from cognition, by considering hominins as subject to the same adaptive influences as other tool-using animals.

Section: Homo Floresiensis and Captivity Bias In Hominin Tool Usementioning

confidence: 99%

‘Captivity bias’ in animal tool use and its implications for the evolution of hominin technology

Haslam

2013

“…Are they not yet motivated to carry out these possibly more costly foraging skills (in terms of time, and sometimes physical effort), while they are still physically immature and provisioned by their parents? In most observational studies reviewed, immatures spend a good deal of time interacting with tool material before they are competent [17].…”

Section: Observational Field Studies Reveal Typical Tool-acquisition mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recycled tools contributed to 80% of the termite-fishing tools used by young naive Goualougo chimpanzees and 95% of the Pandanus tools used by two-to three-month old juvenile New Caledonian crows which decreased to only 5% for seven-to nine-month old crows ( [9]; C. M. Sanz 2013, personal communication). Counterparts, that is left-overs from the tool-manufacturing process, may be used as well [9,17]. Most of the first selfmade tools are dropped (without use) and replaced by tools made by others to obtain the food reward [9,27,42,43].…”

Section: Developmental Evidence For the Role Of Social Inputmentioning

confidence: 99%

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If at first you don't succeed… Studies of ontogeny shed light on the cognitive demands of habitual tool use

Meulman

Seed

Mann

2013

Many species use tools, but the mechanisms underpinning the behaviour differ between species and even among individuals within species, depending on the variants performed. When considering tool use ‘as adaptation’, an important first step is to understand the contribution made by fixed phenotypes as compared to flexible mechanisms, for instance learning. Social learning of tool use is sometimes inferred based on variation between populations of the same species but this approach is questionable. Specifically, alternative explanations cannot be ruled out because population differences are also driven by genetic and/or environmental factors. To better understand the mechanisms underlying routine but non-universal (i.e. habitual) tool use, we suggest focusing on the ontogeny of tool use and individual variation within populations. For example, if tool-using competence emerges late during ontogeny and improves with practice or varies with exposure to social cues, then a role for learning can be inferred. Experimental studies help identify the cognitive and developmental mechanisms used when tools are used to solve problems. The mechanisms underlying the route to tool-use acquisition have important consequences for our understanding of the accumulation in technological skill complexity over the life course of an individual, across generations and over evolutionary time.

“…However, the process of making tools-particularly novel toolsremains somewhat mysterious in both humans and non-humans. For example, while we know that some non-human animals can manufacture tools [3,[5][6][7][8][9][10], the cognitive capabilities required to support this behaviour and the way in which it develops [11][12][13][14][15] are unclear. Even in humans, we know remarkably little about how tool making develops.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Chappell

Cutting

Apperly

et al. 2013

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.