A new study undermines the idea that humans only understand tool use by learning from others. In a sample of 50 toddlers between two and three and a half years old, the researchers observed a similar frequency of tool-related behaviors as seen among wild chimps and orangutans. Common ape behaviors, such as fishing for termites, were observed often in the children engaged in analogous scenarios. And behaviors that were more rare in wild ape communities, such as using a rock to break open a nut, were also more infrequently used by the toddlers. In all, the children solved 11 of 12 tests. Psychologist Eva Reindl, who led the study, says the fact that the toddlers displayed the appropriate behaviors is evidence of the children's instinctual ability to use these simple tools. The results undermine the prevailing notion that children need to learn to use tools in all cases—an idea that goes back to Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who wrote in 1930 that spontaneous tool use by human children was “practically zero.” The findings also suggest that humans and other great apes might share a common, innate cognitive apparatus for understanding and manipulating the physical world. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/toddlers-instinctually-know-how-to-use-a-wild-ape-s-tools/ Paper: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/283/1825/20152402
