Collaborative Research: The Children's Research Initiative (CRI): Integrative Approaches: Perception-Action Foundations of Early Tool Use

协作研究：早期工具的感知-行动基础。Fragazy人类如何学会将物体作为工具使用？ 根据动作/感知耦合理论，要使用工具，个体必须发现物体之间的潜在关系，这种关系允许对一个物体的动作在另一个物体中产生变化（例如，物体A可以用来打击物体B），并通过动作建立这些关系。 用一个物体以特定的方式改变另一个物体（也许是用A来打开B），需要适当地定位或对齐物体，并施加适当的力。必须实现的对齐的数量以及必须调节的运动精确度影响掌握特定工具的难度。 在婴儿开始使用物体作为工具之前（大约在他们一岁生日时），他们通过动作将物体和表面联系起来，例如，通过将物体撞在一起或在固体表面上撞击物体。 我们把这些共同的行为模式称为“感知-行为例程”。 这些程序是否构成了工具使用寿命第二年的外观基础？ 如果是这样，那么感知-行动程序是如何被利用来达到这个新目的的呢？一个合作项目将调查（1）工具使用如何从婴儿的感知-行动程序中出现（2）工具使用如何涉及检测和建立物体和表面之间的关系（3）如何获得熟悉工具的技能以及（4）幼儿使用锤子工具的技能发展与卷尾猴的技能发展有何不同（自发地使用物体作为锤子）在相同的环境中获得技能。总之，实验的结果将帮助我们更好地了解儿童使用工具的发展，以及工具使用在多大程度上代表了人类独有的能力。6至24个月大的儿童将被录像，单独与物体和表面一起行动，这些物体和表面在影响敲击的属性（例如，硬度）和手柄特征方面有系统的变化。 儿童与不熟悉的物体的活动的横断面研究，以及不同年龄的儿童如何在不同条件下熟练使用锤子的练习（例如，当工具对象有手柄时与没有手柄时，以及他们必须在哪里更准确与更不准确）的研究也将进行。这些研究将在8只成年卷尾猴中重复进行。 卷尾猴很容易使用锤子工具，但我们不知道它们在多大程度上像人类一样掌握了行动中的多重关系。 这项工作将有助于学习机制的知识，支持人类工具使用技能的发展，与年龄有关的学习机制的变化，以及人类在这方面的特殊品质。 它有助于当代辩论的连续或不连续的起源工具使用在人类发展和人类进化，以及行动在学习中的作用。 其他更广泛的影响包括本科生和研究生参与研究，研究过程中暴露给公众，并在两个机构的调查人员之间的新的合作关系的发展和行为研究的互补领域（发展和比较心理学）。

AbstractCollaborative Research: Perception-Action Foundations of Early Tool UseDorothy M. FragaszyHow do humans learn to use an object as a tool? According to the theory of action/perception coupling, to use a tool, an individual must detect potential relations between objects that allow actions with one to produce change in another (for example, object A can be used to strike object B), and establish these relations through action. To use one object to change another in a specific way (perhaps to use A to crack B open) requires positioning or aligning the objects appropriately and applying the appropriate force. The number of alignments that must be achieved and how precisely movements must be modulated influence the difficulty of mastering a particular tool. Before they begin to use objects as tools (at about their first birthday), human infants relate objects and surfaces through action, for example, by banging objects together or banging objects on a solid surface. We call these common modes of acting with objects "perception-action routines". Do these routines form the foundation for the appearance over the second year of life of tool use? If so, how are perception-action routines harnessed for this new purpose?A collaborative project will investigate (1) how tool use emerges from infants' perception-action routines (2) how tool use involves detecting and establishing relations between objects and surfaces (3) how skill with a familiar tool is acquired and (4) how the development of skill with hammer tools in young children differs from how capuchin monkeys (that spontaneously use objects as hammers) acquire skill in the same contexts. Taken together, the results of the proposed experiments will help us better understand how tool use develops in children and to what degree tool use represents an ability that is uniquely human.Children between 6 and 24 months of age will be videotaped acting singly with objects and surfaces that vary systematically in properties that affect banging (for example, hardness) and in features of handles. Cross-sectional studies of children's activity with unfamiliar objects, and studies of how children at different ages become skilled with practice at using hammers in varying conditions (for example, when the tool object has a handle vs. when it does not, and when they must be more vs. less accurate in where they strike) will also be conducted. These studies will be replicated with 8 adult capuchin monkeys. Capuchins readily use hammer-tools, but we do not know to what extent they master multiple relations in action as humans do. This work will contribute to knowledge of learning mechanisms that support development of tool-using skills in humans, of age-related changes in learning mechanisms, and of the special qualities of humans in this regard. It contributes to contemporary debates about the continuous or discontinuous origins of tool use in human development and human evolution, and the role of action in learning. Additional broader impacts include involvement of undergraduate and graduate students in research, exposure of the research process to the general public, and the development of a new collaborative relationship between investigators at two institutions and in complementary areas of behavioral study (developmental and comparative psychology).