Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T22:06:09.017Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Tool use and constructions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

Michael A. Arbib
Affiliation:
Computer Science, Neuroscience, and USC Brain Project, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520. arbib@usc.eduhttp://www.usc.edu/programs/neuroscience/faculty/profile.php?fid=16

Abstract

We examine tool use in relation to the capacity of animals for construction, contrasting tools and nests; place human tool use in a more general problem-solving context, revisiting the body schema in the process; and relate the evolution of language and of tool use.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arbib, M. A. (2005) From monkey-like action recognition to human language: An evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 28:105–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arbib, M. A. (2011) From mirror neurons to complex imitation in the evolution of language and tool use. Annual Review of Anthropology 40:257–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbib, M. A. (2012) How the brain got language: The mirror system hypothesis. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arbib, M. A., Bonaiuto, J., Jacobs, S. & Frey, S. H. (2009) Tool use and the distalization of the end-effector. Psychological Research 73(4):441–62. doi: 10.1007/s00426-009-0242-2 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arbib, M. A. & Lee, J. (2008) Describing visual scenes: Towards a neurolinguistics based on construction grammar. Brain Research 1225:146–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Collias, N. E. (1997) The origin and evolution of nest building by passerine birds. Condor 99:253–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, W. (2001) Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, A. E. (2003) Constructions: A new theoretical approach to language. Trends in Cognitive Science 7(5):219–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hansell, M. (2000) Bird nests and construction behaviour. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansell, M. & Ruxton, G. D. (2008) Setting tool use within the context of animal construction behaviour. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23(2):7378. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2007.10.006 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hunt, G. R. (1996) Manufacture and use of hook-tools by New Caledonian crows. Nature 379(6562):249–51. doi: 10.1038/379249a0 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iriki, A. & Taoka, M. (2012). Triadic (ecological, neural, cognitive) niche construction: a scenario of human brain evolution extrapolating tool use and language from the control of reaching actions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 367:1023.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Iriki, A., Tanaka, M. & Iwamura, Y. (1996) Coding of modified body schema during tool use by macaque postcentral neurones. NeuroReport 7(14):2325–30.Google ScholarPubMed
Kemmerer, D. (2006) Action verbs, argument structure constructions, and the mirror neuron system. In: Action to language via the mirror neuron system, ed. Arbib, M. A., pp. 347–73. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laland, K. N., Odling-Smee, J. & Feldman, M. W. (2000) Niche construction, biological evolution, and cultural change. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23(1):131–46. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X00002417.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lefebvre, L., Nicolakakis, N. & Boire, D. (2002) Tools and brains in birds. Behaviour 139(7):939–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, F. A., Piel, A. K. & McGrew, W. C. (2011) Living archaeology: Artefacts of specific nest site fidelity in wild chimpanzees. Journal of Human Evolution 61(4):388–95. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.05.005 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stout, D. (2011) Stone toolmaking and the evolution of human culture and cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 366:1050–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Umiltà, M. A., Escola, L., Intskirveli, I., Grammont, F., Rochat, M., Caruana, F. & Rizzolatti, G. (2008) When pliers become fingers in the monkey motor system. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(6):2209–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Verhagen, A. (2005) Constructions of intersubjectivity: Discourse, syntax, and cognition. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weir, A. A. S., Chappell, J. & Kacelnik, A. (2002) Shaping of hooks in New Caledonian crows. Science 297(5583):981. doi: 10.1126/science.1073433 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed