Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA.
New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Dev Psychobiol. 2021 May;63(4):793-799. doi: 10.1002/dev.22049. Epub 2020 Oct 30.
The everyday world is populated with artifacts that require specific motor actions to use objects as their designers intended. But researchers know little about how children learn to use everyday artifacts. We encouraged forty-four 12- to 60-month-old children to unzip a vinyl pouch during a single 60-s trial. Although unzipping a pouch may seem simple, it is not. Unzipping requires precise role-differentiated bimanual actions-one hand must stabilize the pouch while the other hand applies a pulling force on the tab. Moreover, kinematic data from six adults showed that the tolerance limits for applying the forces are relatively narrow (pulling the tab within 63° of the zipper teeth while stabilizing the pouch within 4 cm of the slider). Children showed an age-related progression for the unzipping action. The youngest children did not display the designed pulling action; children at intermediate ages pulled the tab but applied forces outside the tolerance limits (pulled in the wrong direction, failed to stabilize the pouch in the correct location), and the oldest children successfully implemented the designed action. Findings highlight the perceptual-motor requirements in children's discovery and implementation of the hidden affordances of everyday artifacts.
日常生活中充斥着各种人工制品，这些制品需要特定的动作才能被使用者按照设计者的意图使用。但研究人员对儿童如何学习使用日常人工制品知之甚少。我们鼓励 44 名 12 至 60 个月大的儿童在 60 秒的单次试验中拉开一个乙烯基小袋。虽然拉开一个小袋看起来很简单，但实际上并非如此。拉开小袋需要精确的角色分化的双手动作——一只手必须稳定小袋，另一只手在拉链上施加拉力。此外，来自六名成年人的运动学数据表明，施加力的容限相对较窄（在拉链齿内拉动拉片 63°，同时将小袋稳定在滑杆 4 厘米内）。儿童在拉开小袋的动作上表现出与年龄相关的进展。最小的孩子没有表现出设计的拉动动作；年龄较大的孩子拉动拉片，但施加的力超出了容限（拉错方向，未能将小袋稳定在正确的位置），而最大的孩子则成功地实施了设计动作。研究结果强调了儿童在发现和实施日常人工制品隐藏功能时的感知运动要求。
