Learning About Tools in Infancy

Vanderbilt University, Nashville TN

Investigators

Abstract

Adults use tools, such as a spoon for eating soup or a screwdriver for constructing a piece of furniture, frequently and effortlessly. Many processes contribute to tool-use behaviors, but the ways in which these processes combine are not well understood. Studying how tool use develops in young children can provide insights into how these processes integrate to product effective tool use. Two different approaches to the study of tool use development have emerged from different research traditions: one focuses on how children's tool use arises from their exploratory actions on objects, and the other focuses on children's ideas about tools and how they are meant to be used. This project will help determine which of these two approaches provides a better explanation for the development of tool use. In addition to providing evidence about how infants build on their early experiences to develop mature tool-use skills across the first two years of life, this project also provides opportunities for undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students to learn about the research process, and for parents of participants to learn about how to support their infant's early perceptual-motor development. A longitudinal approach will be used to assess the development of tool use in 42 infants. Early in the study, 3-month-old infants will be given daily play-based experiences that could influence their later tool use. Half of the infants will receive experiences that enhance their performance in tool-use tasks, and half will receive experiences that are similar, but that are not expected to influence performance in tool-use tasks. Before and after these experiences, all infants will be given age-appropriate tasks to measure their tool-related skills. At 2 years of age, their concepts of the purpose(s) of individual tools will be assessed. The question of most interest is whether infants whose perception-action skills are improved by their earlier experiences will also show improvement in their tool concepts. If so, this will be evidence that early perception-action skills are closely related to (and may even transform into) later tool concepts. If not, this will be evidence that the development of early perception-action skills are distinct from the development of later tool concepts. These data will shed light on the basic processes underlying tool use behaviors and whether early experiences are important for the typical development of these behaviors.