Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information

Abstract The ratchet effect – the accumulation of beneficial changes in cultural products beyond a level that individuals could reach on their own – is a topic of increasing interest. It is currently debated which social learning mechanisms allow for the generation and transmission of cumulative cul...

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Autores principales:	E. Reindl, I. A. Apperly, S. R. Beck, C. Tennie
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/09bbf79710714377a340f30a56c3af22
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:09bbf79710714377a340f30a56c3af222021-12-02T12:30:12ZYoung children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information10.1038/s41598-017-01715-22045-2322https://doaj.org/article/09bbf79710714377a340f30a56c3af222017-05-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-01715-2https://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract The ratchet effect – the accumulation of beneficial changes in cultural products beyond a level that individuals could reach on their own – is a topic of increasing interest. It is currently debated which social learning mechanisms allow for the generation and transmission of cumulative culture. This study focused on transmission, investigating whether 4- to 6-year-old children were able to copy cumulative technological design and whether they could do so without action information (emulation). We adapted the spaghetti tower task, previously used to test for accumulation of culture in human adults. A baseline condition established that the demonstrated tower design was beyond the innovation skills of individual children this age and so represented a culture-dependent product for them. There were 2 demonstration conditions: a full demonstration (actions plus (end-)results) and an endstate- demonstration (end-results only). Children in both demonstration conditions built taller towers than those in the baseline. Crucially, in both demonstration conditions some children also copied the demonstrated tower. We provide the first evidence that young children learn from, and that some of them even copy, cumulative technological design, and that – in line with some adult studies – action information is not always necessary to transmit culture-dependent traits.E. ReindlI. A. ApperlyS. R. BeckC. TennieNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q E. Reindl I. A. Apperly S. R. Beck C. Tennie Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information
description	Abstract The ratchet effect – the accumulation of beneficial changes in cultural products beyond a level that individuals could reach on their own – is a topic of increasing interest. It is currently debated which social learning mechanisms allow for the generation and transmission of cumulative culture. This study focused on transmission, investigating whether 4- to 6-year-old children were able to copy cumulative technological design and whether they could do so without action information (emulation). We adapted the spaghetti tower task, previously used to test for accumulation of culture in human adults. A baseline condition established that the demonstrated tower design was beyond the innovation skills of individual children this age and so represented a culture-dependent product for them. There were 2 demonstration conditions: a full demonstration (actions plus (end-)results) and an endstate- demonstration (end-results only). Children in both demonstration conditions built taller towers than those in the baseline. Crucially, in both demonstration conditions some children also copied the demonstrated tower. We provide the first evidence that young children learn from, and that some of them even copy, cumulative technological design, and that – in line with some adult studies – action information is not always necessary to transmit culture-dependent traits.
format	article
author	E. Reindl I. A. Apperly S. R. Beck C. Tennie
author_facet	E. Reindl I. A. Apperly S. R. Beck C. Tennie
author_sort	E. Reindl
title	Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information
title_short	Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information
title_full	Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information
title_fullStr	Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information
title_full_unstemmed	Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information
title_sort	young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/09bbf79710714377a340f30a56c3af22
work_keys_str_mv	AT ereindl youngchildrencopycumulativetechnologicaldesignintheabsenceofactioninformation AT iaapperly youngchildrencopycumulativetechnologicaldesignintheabsenceofactioninformation AT srbeck youngchildrencopycumulativetechnologicaldesignintheabsenceofactioninformation AT ctennie youngchildrencopycumulativetechnologicaldesignintheabsenceofactioninformation
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Young children copy cumulative technological design in the absence of action information

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