Âé¶¹´«Ã½AV

Book Chapter

The role of experience in tool use.

Details

Citation

Martin-Ordas G (2016) The role of experience in tool use.. In: Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Abstract
In one of K?hler¡¯s classical problem-solving experiments, chimpanzees were presented with an out-of-reach banana suspended from the ceiling (K?hler 1925). Importantly, the only available ¡°tools¡± in the room to solve the problem were some boxes. Chimpanzees¡¯ first reaction was to try to directly reach the banana. After a few initial unsuccessful attempts, several chimpanzees suddenly started to stack the boxes and eventually obtained the reward. When explaining their performance, K?hler stressed the insightful nature of chimpanzees¡¯ responses and argued that his chimpanzees solved the problem by an immediate reasoning process that reorganized their previous individual experiences (e.g., moving boxes, box in relation to reward) into a mental representation that allowed them to find the solution (K?hler 1925). However, K?hler¡¯s explanations were criticized since little was known about chimpanzees¡¯ previous learning history with boxes.

StatusPublished
Publication date31/12/2016
Publication date online10/12/2016
PublisherSpringer
Place of publicationCham, Switzerland
ISBN978-3319196497
eISBN978-3-319-16999-6

People (1)

Dr Gema Martin-Ordas

Dr Gema Martin-Ordas

Senior Lecturer, Psychology