title: Making tools isn't child's play.
abstract: Tool making evidences intelligent, flexible thinking. In Experiment 1, we confirmed that 4- to 7-year-olds chose a hook tool to retrieve a bucket from a tube. In Experiment 2, 3- to 5-year-olds consistently failed to innovate a simple hook tool. Eight-year-olds performed at mature levels. In contrast, making a tool following demonstration was easy for even the youngest children. In Experiment 3, children's performance did not improve given the opportunity to manipulate the objects in a warm-up phase. Children's tool innovation lags substantially behind their ability to learn how to make tools by observing others.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. s.r.beck@bham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sarah R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Beck
authors.forename: Ian A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Apperly
authors.forename: Jackie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chappell
authors.forename: Carlie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guthrie
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cutting
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D053001:Tool Use Behavior / Q000502:physiology*