On the psychological origins of tool use

Mangalam, Madhur; Fragaszy, Dorothy M.; Wagman, Jeffrey B.; Day, B.; Kelty-Stephen, Damian G.; Bongers, Raoul M.; Stout, Dietrich

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104521

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 311 publications

(389 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This shows globally that the viewpoint of radical tool embodiment is specific in that it does not suppose any form of body representation in the cognitive user-tool system [14]. Although the brain carries information about the body's boundaries, radical embodiment conceives porous and fuzzy boundaries, fluidly spilling over contextual constraints and supported by nonlinear body-tool interdependencies [24]. This way, the successful embodiment of a tool in a given context is a state where the mutual contingency between the body and the tool emerges from interactions unfolding across multiple time scales at once.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…The scientific understanding of tool use has challenged researchers in many different academic disciplines, such as anthropology, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and movement science. Recent conceptions of tool embodiment as they emerge from these different disciplines have been reviewed [14,24]. This shows globally that the viewpoint of radical tool embodiment is specific in that it does not suppose any form of body representation in the cognitive user-tool system [14].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2022, 6, x FOR PEER REVIEW 9 of 11 multifractality of the movement series increased in correlation with the number of neural networks identified by brain functional connectivity [2]. In another study using a card sorting task, the dynamics of the hand movements show greater multifractality when the sorting rule had to be inferred from experimenter feedbacks [5,24]. By analyzing linearized surrogate, multifractal nonlinearity in original series was confirmed and led the authors to conclude that cognitive control arose from the interactions across multiple time scales at once rather than from a central executive.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Tool Embodiment Is Reflected in Movement Multifractal Nonlinearity

Pratviel

Deschodt-Arsac

Larrue³

et al. 2022

Fractal Fract

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent advances in neuroscience have linked dynamical systems theory to cognition. The main contention is that extended cognition relies on a unitary brain-body-tool system showing the expected signatures of interaction-dominance reflected in a multifractal behavior. This might be particularly relevant when it comes to understanding how the brain is able to embody a tool to perform a task. Here we applied the multifractal formalism to the dynamics of hand movement while one was performing a computer task (the herding task) using a mouse or its own hand as a tool to move an object on the screen. We applied a focus-based multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis to acceleration time series. Then, multifractal nonlinearity was assessed by comparing original series to a finite set of surrogates obtained after Iterated Amplitude Adjusted Fourier transformation, a method that removes nonlinear multiscale dependencies while preserving the linear structure of the time series. Both hand and mouse task execution demonstrated multifractal nonlinearity, a typical form of across-scales interactivity in cognitive control. In addition, a wider multifractal spectrum was observed in mouse condition, which might highlight a richer set of interactions when the cognitive system is extended to the embodied mouse. We conclude that the emergence of multifractal nonlinearity from a brain-body-tool system pleads for recent theories of radical tool embodiment. Multifractal nonlinearity may be a promising metric to appreciate how physical objects—but also virtual tools and potentially prosthetics—are efficiently embodied by the brain.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Tool Embodiment Is Reflected in Movement Multifractal Nonlinearity

Pratviel

Deschodt-Arsac

Larrue³

et al. 2022

Fractal Fract

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Embodied artifacts are absorbed in the body schema and are, when properly embodied, experienced as transparent extensions of the motor system. The user then experiences an enhanced agency through using the artifact (Mangalam et al, 2022). A body schema is a subpersonal representation of the body's size, shape, and position (Gallagher, 2006).…”

Section: Embodied Artifactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human uniqueness in using tools and artifacts: flexibility, variety, complexity

Heersmink

2022

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether (and how) humans are unique in using tools and artifacts. Non-human animals exhibit some impressive instances of tool and artifact-use. Chimpanzees use sticks to get termites out of a mound, beavers build dams, birds make nests, spiders create webs, bowerbirds make bowers to impress potential mates, etc. There is no doubt that some animals modify and use objects in clever and sophisticated ways. But how does this relate to the way in which humans make and use objects to achieve their goals? To answer this question, this paper first presents a taxonomy of artifacts, identifying four overlapping categories, namely embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective artifacts. It then discusses definitions of animal tool-use, arguing that we need a more liberal approach, one that goes beyond the use of tools that are embedded in occurrent perception-action cycles. This paper ends by analysing how instances of animal tool and artifact-use can be classified according to the four identified categories, concluding that some animals use embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective artifacts. In this sense, humans are thus not unique in the kinds of tools and artifacts we use. What is unique, however, is our unprecedented flexibility and openness to deeply incorporate a large variety of complex tools and artifacts into our embodied, perceptual, cognitive, and affective systems.

show abstract

“…In the ecological-enactive cognition approach, objects use has been associated with detecting and exploiting information about affordances-what an organism can do with an object or a surface based on its capabilities (Vicente and Rasmussen, 1990;Lockman, 2000;Lockman and Kahrs, 2017;Mangalam et al, 2022). The term "affordance" was coined by Gibson (1979) to emphasize that the agent does not simply process physical properties of the environment (like color, shape, or distance) but rather picks up those dispositional properties that allow to organize the behavior and act on the environment (Rochat and Reed, 1987).…”

Section: The Complexity Of the Aut And Human Object Usementioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative Object Use in Adults and Children: Embodied Cognitive Bases of Creativity

Gubenko

Houssemand

2022

Front. Psychol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Why does one need creativity? On a personal level, improvisation with available resources is needed for online coping with unforeseen environmental stimuli when existing knowledge and apparent action strategies do not work. On a cultural level, the exploitation of existing cultural means and norms for the deliberate production of novel and valuable artifacts is a basis for cultural and technological development and extension of human action possibilities across various domains. It is less clear, however, how creativity develops and how exactly one arrives at generating new action possibilities and producing multiple alternative action strategies using familiar objects. In this theoretical paper, we first consider existing accounts of the creative process in the Alternative Uses Task and then present an alternative interpretation, drawing on sociocultural views and an embodied cognition approach. We explore similarities between the psychological processes underlying the generation of new uses in the Alternative Uses Task and children’s pretend play. We discuss possible cognitive mechanisms and speculate how the generation of new action possibilities for common objects in pretend play can be related to adults’ ability to generate new action strategies associated with object use. Implications for creativity development in humans and embodied artificial agents are discussed.

show abstract

On the psychological origins of tool use

Cited by 12 publications

References 311 publications

Tool Embodiment Is Reflected in Movement Multifractal Nonlinearity

Tool Embodiment Is Reflected in Movement Multifractal Nonlinearity

Human uniqueness in using tools and artifacts: flexibility, variety, complexity

Alternative Object Use in Adults and Children: Embodied Cognitive Bases of Creativity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About