1-162 - Learning to use Novel Objects: Reasoning and Innovation

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The modern world would be a mysterious and difficult place to navigate without an understanding of the artefacts and tools that fill it. Artefacts and tools allow us to function more efficiently, satisfy social norms, and, through the processes of cumulative cultural evolution, achieve ever more complex technological growth. This symposium will present evidence for factors that affect children’s social and individual learning of object-use knowledge, the transmission of knowledge, and the developmental origins of social reasoning in this domain.

Paper 1 finds that 4- to 9-year-old children rely heavily upon social information when interacting with a novel puzzle box task, yet innovate (produce novel and successful methods of their own) significantly more when this information is unreliable. Paper 2 reveals that children aged 3 to 5 years discern the causal structure of novel objects independently when exposed to an unknowledgeable demonstrator, resulting in the omission of object irrelevant actions. Paper 3 finds that children within the same age range engage in spontaneous teaching when observing others partake in an innovation task, capturing the transmission of object-use knowledge. Finally, Paper 4 demonstrates the role of artefacts in social interactions; from preschool age, children engage sophisticated social reasoning abilities to infer the interests of others based solely on the artefacts they possess. This symposium will offer new insight into the processes through which children become adept tool users and navigators of the social world, ultimately taking us closer to an understanding of why and how material culture evolved.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chair

• Kayleigh Carr, Durham University

Individual Presentations

• You're Doing it Wrong: Does Efficacy of Observed Behaviour Influence Innovation? - Presenting Author: Kayleigh Carr, Durham University; Rachel Kendal, Durham University; Emma Grace Flynn, Durham University

• Preschoolers Independently Discern Causal Structure When Observing an Unknowledgeable Demonstrator - Presenting Author: Amy K Gardiner, Skidmore College; Kayla B Causey

• Sharing Innovations: Young Children Spontaneously Teach Naive Others how to Make Tools - Presenting Author: Sarah Beck, University of Birmingham; Nicola Cutting, University of Birmingham; Kayleigh Day, University College London; Ian Antony Apperly, University of Birmingham

• Artifacts as Windows Into Other Minds: Pre-school Children use Artifacts to Infer Others’ Mutual Interests - Presenting Author: Adena Schachner, Boston University; Deb Kelemen, Boston Univ