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 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. Ther

SUBMITTER: Reindl E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5431834 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature