Lew-Levy Sheina, Andersen Marc Malmdorf, Lavi Noa, Riede Felix
Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Department of Comparative Cultural Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2022 May 11;13:824983. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.824983. eCollection 2022.
Learning to use, make, and modify tools is key to our species' success. Researchers have hypothesized that play with objects may have a foundational role in the ontogeny of tool use and, over evolutionary timescales, in cumulative technological innovation. Yet, there are few systematic studies investigating children's interactions with objects outside the post-industrialized West. Here, we survey the ethnohistorical record to uncover cross-cultural trends regarding hunter-gatherer children's use of objects during play and instrumental activities. Our dataset, consisting of 434 observations of children's toys and tools from 54 hunter-gatherer societies, reveals several salient trends: Most objects in our dataset are used in play. Children readily manufacture their own toys, such as dolls and shelters. Most of the objects that children interact with are constructed from multiple materials. Most of the objects in our dataset are full-sized or miniature versions of adult tools, reflecting learning for adult roles. Children also engage with objects related to child culture, primarily during play. Taken together, our findings show that hunter-gatherer children grow up playing, making, and learning with objects.
学习使用、制作和修改工具是我们人类物种成功的关键。研究人员推测，与物体玩耍可能在工具使用的个体发育过程中，以及在进化时间尺度上的累积技术创新中发挥着基础性作用。然而，很少有系统的研究调查后工业化西方以外地区儿童与物体的互动情况。在这里，我们通过调查民族历史记录，以揭示关于狩猎采集社会儿童在玩耍和工具使用活动中与物体互动的跨文化趋势。我们的数据集包含来自54个狩猎采集社会的434项儿童玩具和工具观察结果，揭示了几个显著趋势：我们数据集中的大多数物体都用于玩耍。儿童很容易制作自己的玩具，如玩偶和庇护所。儿童与之互动的大多数物体是由多种材料制成的。我们数据集中的大多数物体是成人工具的全尺寸或微型版本，反映了对成人角色的学习。儿童也会与与儿童文化相关的物体互动，主要是在玩耍时。综合来看，我们的研究结果表明，狩猎采集社会的儿童在与物体的玩耍、制作和学习中成长。
