Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T03:37:18.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The technical reasoning hypothesis does not rule out the potential key roles of imitation and working memory for CTC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2020

Alba Motes-Rodrigo Open the ORCID record for Alba Motes-Rodrigo [Opens in a new window] ,
Eva Reindl  and
Elisa Bandini
Alba Motes-Rodrigo
Affiliation:
Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, 72070Tübingen, Germany. [email protected]://sites.google.com/view/alba-motes-rodrigo/[email protected]://sites.google.com/view/elisabandini/home
Eva Reindl
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Mary's Quad, KY16 9JPSt Andrews, UK. [email protected]://www.evareindl.com/
Elisa Bandini
Affiliation:
Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, 72070Tübingen, Germany. [email protected]://sites.google.com/view/alba-motes-rodrigo/[email protected]://sites.google.com/view/elisabandini/home
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

To support their claim for technical reasoning skills rather than imitation as the key for cumulative technological culture (CTC), Osiurak and Reynaud argue that chimpanzees can imitate mechanical actions, but do not have CTC. They also state that an increase in working memory in human evolution could not have been a key driver of CTC. We discuss why we disagree with these claims.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 43 , 2020 , e173
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Clay, Z. & Tennie, C. (2017) Is over-imitation a uniquely human phenomenon? Insights from human children as compared to bonobos. Child Development 89:1535–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowan, N. (2017) The many faces of working memory and short-term storage. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 24:1158–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diamond, A. (2013) Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology 64:135–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halford, G. S., Wilson, W. H. & Phillips, S. (1998) Processing capacity defined by relational complexity: Implications for comparative, developmental, and cognitive psychology. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21:803–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henrich, J. & Tennie, C. (2017) Cultural evolution in chimpanzees and humans. In: Chimpanzees and human evolution, eds. Muller, M., Wrangham, R. & Pilbeam, D.. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hopper, L. M., Lambeth, S. P., Schapiro, S. J. & Whiten, A. (2008) Observational learning in chimpanzees and children studied through ‘ghost’ conditions. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 275(1636):835–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Horner, V. & Whiten, A. (2005) Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens). Animal Cognition 8(3):164–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horner, V., Whiten, A., Flynn, E. & de Waal, F. B. M. (2006) Faithful replication of foraging techniques along cultural transmission chains by chimpanzees and children. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103:13878–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Simms, N. K., Frausel, R. R. & Richland, L. E. (2018) Working memory predicts children's analogical reasoning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 166:160–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennie, C., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2009) Ratcheting up the ratchet: On the evolution of cumulative culture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 364:2405–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennie, C., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2010) Evidence for emulation in chimpanzees in social settings using the floating peanut task. PLoS One 5:e10544.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tennie, C., Call, J. & Tomasello, M. (2012) Untrained chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) fail to imitate novel actions. PLoS One 7:e41548.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Whiten, A., Horner, V. & de Waal, F. B. M. (2005) Conformity to cultural norms of tool use in chimpanzees. Nature 437:737–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wynn, T. & Coolidge, F. L. (2007) Did a small but significant enhancement in working-memory capacity power the evolution of modern thinking? In: Rethinking the human revolution: New behavioural and biological perspectives on the origin and dispersal of modern humans, eds. Mellars, P., Boyle, K., Bar-Yosef, O. & Stringer, C., pp. 79–90. McDonald Institute Monographs.Google Scholar
Wynn, T. & Coolidge, F. L. (2014) Technical cognition, working memory and creativity. Pragmatics & Cognition 22:45–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar