We investigated how repeated, five-minute familiarization sessions occurring once a week over a 6-week period influenced infants’ knowledge about the functional properties of a rake-like tool and their ability to use it for retrieving an out of reach object by 16 months of age. We found that infants, who were not allowed to touch the rake, but only to observe an adultretrieveanobjectwithit,improvedtheirperformance.Ontheotherhand,infantswho wereallowedtomanuallymanipulatetherakeandtouchandmoveotherobjectswithitdid not improve their performance. The results, which were replicated in a string-pulling task, suggest that, although both motor and cognitive limitations affect performance, it is rather cognitive limitations that prevent infants from understanding the functional properties of the tool and from succeeding in such tool-use tasks. Furthermore, infants can overcome thesecognitivelimitationswithonlyafew,briefdemonstrationsspacedoverseveralweeks.
Somogyi E., Ara C., Gianni E., Rat-Fischer L., Fattori P., O’Regan K., et al. (2015). The Roles of Observation and Manipulation in Learning to Use a Tool. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT, 35, 186-200 [10.1016/j.cogdev.2015.06.002].
The Roles of Observation and Manipulation in Learning to Use a Tool
FATTORI, PATRIZIA;
2015
Abstract
We investigated how repeated, five-minute familiarization sessions occurring once a week over a 6-week period influenced infants’ knowledge about the functional properties of a rake-like tool and their ability to use it for retrieving an out of reach object by 16 months of age. We found that infants, who were not allowed to touch the rake, but only to observe an adultretrieveanobjectwithit,improvedtheirperformance.Ontheotherhand,infantswho wereallowedtomanuallymanipulatetherakeandtouchandmoveotherobjectswithitdid not improve their performance. The results, which were replicated in a string-pulling task, suggest that, although both motor and cognitive limitations affect performance, it is rather cognitive limitations that prevent infants from understanding the functional properties of the tool and from succeeding in such tool-use tasks. Furthermore, infants can overcome thesecognitivelimitationswithonlyafew,briefdemonstrationsspacedoverseveralweeks.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
