What exists in the environment that motivates the emergence, transmission, and sophistication of tool use?

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 233-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetsushi Nonaka
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Changing Environment ◽  
Cognitive Traits

AbstractIn his attempt to find cognitive traits that set humans apart from nonhuman primates with respect to tool use, Vaesen overlooks the primacy of the environment toward the use of which behavior evolves. The occurrence of a particular behavior is a result of how that behavior has evolved in a complex and changing environment selected by a unique population.

Tool Use in Nonhuman Primates

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Stephanie Musgrave ◽  
Crickette Sanz
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Nonhuman Primates

The limits of chimpanzee-human comparisons for understanding human cognition

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 238-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon M. Reader ◽  
Steven M. Hrotic
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Comparative Analyses ◽  
Cognitive Traits ◽  
Close Relatives

AbstractEvolutionary questions require specialized approaches, part of which are comparisons between close relatives. However, to understand the origins of human tool behavior, comparisons with solely chimpanzees are insufficient, lacking the power to identify derived traits. Moreover, tool use is unlikely a unitary phenomenon. Large-scale comparative analyses provide an alternative and suggest that tool use co-evolves with a suite of cognitive traits.

scholarly journals The cognitive bases of human tool use

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 203-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krist Vaesen
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Body Schema ◽  
Great Apes ◽  
Great Ape ◽  
Hand Eye Coordination ◽  
The Face

AbstractThis article has two goals. The first is to assess, in the face of accruing reports on the ingenuity of great ape tool use, whether and in what sense human tool use still evidences unique, higher cognitive ability. To that effect, I offer a systematic comparison between humans and nonhuman primates with respect to nine cognitive capacities deemed crucial to tool use: enhanced hand-eye coordination, body schema plasticity, causal reasoning, function representation, executive control, social learning, teaching, social intelligence, and language. Since striking differences between humans and great apes stand firm in eight out of nine of these domains, I conclude that human tool use still marks a major cognitive discontinuity between us and our closest relatives. As a second goal of the paper, I address the evolution of human technologies. In particular, I show how the cognitive traits reviewed help to explain why technological accumulation evolved so markedly in humans, and so modestly in apes.

The hominid tool-language connection: Some missing evolutionary links?

1995 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Maryanski
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Causal Model ◽  
Broca’S Area ◽  
Broca's Area ◽  
Brain Expansion ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis commentary criticizes Wilkins & Wakefield's thesis that the neurological precursors of language provide a cognitive Rubicon to linguistically divide human from nonhuman primates. A causal model of their theory is presented, followed by a discussion of the relationship between brain expansion and tool use, Broca's area and the parietaloccipital-temporal junction (POT).

scholarly journals Heritability of Gray Matter Structural Covariation and Tool Use Skills in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): A Source-Based Morphometry and Quantitative Genetic Analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 3702-3711 ◽  
Author(s):  
William D Hopkins ◽  
Robert D Latzman ◽  
Mary Catherine Mareno ◽  
Steven J Schapiro ◽  
Aida Gómez-Robles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gray Matter ◽  
Pan Troglodytes ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Genetic Associations ◽  
Heritable Variation ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Genetic Mechanisms ◽  
Genetic Contributions

Abstract Nonhuman primates, and great apes in particular, possess a variety of cognitive abilities thought to underlie human brain and cognitive evolution, most notably, the manufacture and use of tools. In a relatively large sample (N = 226) of captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) for whom pedigrees are well known, the overarching aim of the current study was to investigate the source of heritable variation in brain structure underlying tool use skills. Specifically, using source-based morphometry (SBM), a multivariate analysis of naturally occurring patterns of covariation in gray matter across the brain, we investigated (1) the genetic contributions to variation in SBM components, (2) sex and age effects for each component, and (3) phenotypic and genetic associations between SBM components and tool use skill. Results revealed important sex- and age-related differences across largely heritable SBM components and associations between structural covariation and tool use skill. Further, shared genetic mechanisms appear to account for a heritable link between variation in both the capacity to use tools and variation in morphology of the superior limb of the superior temporal sulcus and adjacent parietal cortex. Findings represent the first evidence of heritability of structural covariation in gray matter among nonhuman primates.

So, are we the massively lucky species?

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 236-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek C. Penn ◽  
Keith J. Holyoak ◽  
Daniel J. Povinelli
Keyword(s):  
Tool Use ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Relational Reasoning ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Cognitive Traits

AbstractWe are in vehement agreement with most of Vaesen's key claims. But Vaesen fails to consider or rebut the possibility that there are deep causal dependencies among the various cognitive traits he identifies as uniquely human. We argue that “higher-order relational reasoning” is one such linchpin trait in the evolution of human tool use, social intelligence, language, and culture.

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