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Tool innovation may be a critical limiting step for the establishment of a rich tool-using culture: A perspective from child development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 June 2012

Sarah R. Beck ,
Jackie Chappell ,
Ian A. Apperly  and
Nicola Cutting
Sarah R. Beck
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom. s.r.beck@bham.ac.uki.a.apperly@bham.ac.uknxc945@bham.ac.ukwww.birmingham.ac.uk/psychology
Jackie Chappell
Affiliation:
School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom. j.m.chappell@bham.ac.ukwww.birmingham.ac.uk/biosciences
Ian A. Apperly
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom. s.r.beck@bham.ac.uki.a.apperly@bham.ac.uknxc945@bham.ac.ukwww.birmingham.ac.uk/psychology
Nicola Cutting
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom. s.r.beck@bham.ac.uki.a.apperly@bham.ac.uknxc945@bham.ac.ukwww.birmingham.ac.uk/psychology
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Abstract

Recent data show that human children (up to 8 years old) perform poorly when required to innovate tools. Our tool-rich culture may be more reliant on social learning and more limited by domain-general constraints such as ill-structured problem solving than otherwise thought.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , August 2012 , pp. 220 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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