TY - JOUR
T1 - Tooling and construction
T2 - from nut-cracking and stone-tool making to bird nests and language
AU - Arbib, Michael A.
AU - Fragaszy, Dorothy M.
AU - Healy, Susan D.
AU - Stout, Dietrich
N1 - Funding: This article is based in part on the ABLE (Action, Brain, Language, Evolution) mini-workshop on “Construction, Tools and Language” held at Emory University, Atlanta, November 2019, which was supported in part by the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture at Emory University and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS-1343544 “INSPIRE Track 1: Action, Vision and Language, and their Brain Mechanisms in Evolutionary Relationship” (Michael A. Arbib, Principal Investigator).
PY - 2023/7/7
Y1 - 2023/7/7
N2 - The present paper provides an integrative theory of actions and motor programs for skill in tool use, construction, and language. We analyze preconditions for action as well as making their effects (postconditions) explicit, emphasizing the “how” of action details as well as the “what” of motor programs, aided by conceptual analysis of several brain modeling efforts. The theory is exemplified by analysis of the subtractive construction involved in percussive tooling by capuchin monkeys and Oldowan and Acheulean stone tool by protohumans making before turning to the additive construction of hafted tools. A complementary analysis focused on the construction of bird nests explores the notion of “image” and “stage” in construction. We offer a brief comparison with birdsong before arguing for a very different relation between communication and construction in humans. Pantomime lifts manipulation from practical to communicative action in protohumans, and we consider the role of pedagogy before offering hypotheses on the emergence of human language that suggest how language may have evolved from manual skills. We note that language provides an open-ended means for devising innovations in tool use and construction, but reiterate the importance of this framework for diverse future studies in ethology and comparative psychology.
AB - The present paper provides an integrative theory of actions and motor programs for skill in tool use, construction, and language. We analyze preconditions for action as well as making their effects (postconditions) explicit, emphasizing the “how” of action details as well as the “what” of motor programs, aided by conceptual analysis of several brain modeling efforts. The theory is exemplified by analysis of the subtractive construction involved in percussive tooling by capuchin monkeys and Oldowan and Acheulean stone tool by protohumans making before turning to the additive construction of hafted tools. A complementary analysis focused on the construction of bird nests explores the notion of “image” and “stage” in construction. We offer a brief comparison with birdsong before arguing for a very different relation between communication and construction in humans. Pantomime lifts manipulation from practical to communicative action in protohumans, and we consider the role of pedagogy before offering hypotheses on the emergence of human language that suggest how language may have evolved from manual skills. We note that language provides an open-ended means for devising innovations in tool use and construction, but reiterate the importance of this framework for diverse future studies in ethology and comparative psychology.
KW - “How” versus “what”
KW - Acheulean tool making
KW - Bird nest construction
KW - Capuchin nut cracking
KW - Construction (additive/subtractive)
KW - Hafted tools
KW - Image and assemblage
KW - Language evolution
KW - Mirror system hypothesis
KW - Motor programs
KW - Oldowan tool making
KW - Pantomime
KW - Postconditions
KW - Preconditions
KW - Technological pedagogy hypothesis
KW - Tool use
KW - Tooling
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85164324179
U2 - 10.1016/j.crbeha.2023.100121
DO - 10.1016/j.crbeha.2023.100121
M3 - Article
SN - 2666-5182
VL - 5
JO - Current Research in Behavioral Sciences
JF - Current Research in Behavioral Sciences
M1 - 100121
ER -