Abstract
A broader conception of the user’s perceptual, cognitive, and motor capabilities considers tools as body extensions. By identifying specific tool-related motor-grounded mechanisms, the embodied approach assumes that this “extensional phenomenon” takes place not only at a behavioral level but also at a psychological level. At least four ways of conceiving embodiment in tool use have been offered in relation to the concepts of incorporation, perception, knowledge, and observation. Nevertheless, the validity of these conceptions has been rarely, if not never, assessed. In this article, we attempt to fill this gap by discussing each of these conceptions in turn, with the aim of determining whether it is justified to consider tools as detached objects of a special sort in embodied terms. We argue that tool incorporation is made possible by “distalization”, that is, an embodied mechanism specific to tool use. Nevertheless, there is neither empirical nor theoretical support for the hypothesis that specific tool-related embodied mechanisms are involved in perception, knowledge, and observation. In broad terms, there is a tendency in the literature to overinterpret tool use as an embodied phenomenon at a psychological level. Inevitably, this limitation leads us to under-intellectualize the underlying cognitive processes and, as a result, it prevents us from understanding the technical-reasoning skills that allow humans to transform dramatically the physical world.
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Notes
Here the term object does not refer only to an object with finite boundaries as a stick or a stone but can also include an object with no finite boundaries such as water or ground.
Gibson (1986) was in line with this, mentioning several times the case of “missiles” to illustrate his description of tools.
Patients with extinction can perceive a contralateral stimulus in isolation but can fail to perceive the same stimulus when presented together with an ipsilesional one. This phenomenon can arise cross-modally (e.g., visual-tactile extinction).
Distalization does not concern all the instances of tool use as defined by Shumaker et al. (2011), particularly in cases where the tool is thrown (i.e., throwing actions). We will not discuss further this aspect. Nevertheless, note that if distalization is considered as the core criterion of tool use, then throwing actions should be excluded from the category of tool-use actions (for a similar view, see Fragaszy and Mangalam 2018)..
This proposal also allows to draw a sharp distinction between “cloth-like objects” (e.g., gloves, shoes) and tools inasmuch as cloth-like objects do not need to be controlled differently to the body-only system contrary to tools.
In other words, distalization can be both innate and learnt.
The notion of physical understanding does not imply that an individual is able to reason about the physical world at an analogical level. As discussed in more details in Sect. 4.2., the ability to transfer what is understood technically from a situation to another situation is the key feature of technical reasoning (Osiurak et al. 2010).
It would be more correct to call these tool-centered affordances “xx-with-ability” rather than “xx-ability” (e.g., cut-with-ability instead of cut-ability), because they do not correspond to the actions that an individual can perform on but rather with the tool compared to user-centered affordances “xx-ability” (e.g., grasp-ability). This nomenclature was, for instance, used by Wagman and Carello (2001).
For this reason, Osiurak et al. (2017) recently proposed to limit the term affordances to the opportunities for action offered by the environment in terms of “motor actions”, and to use the term “mechanical action” when the opportunities for action concerns the interaction between two external objects. Note that one of these two external objects can be the body of the user (i.e., reflective actions, such as brushing teeth). In this case, the body is the “object” of the mechanical action.
This proposal is sometimes misinterpreted, as if it suggests that the acquisition of our knowledge about the physical world (i.e., mechanical knowledge) does not emerge from our interactions with it. As demonstrated by a significant body of evidence, most of mechanical knowledge is acquired through our interactions with the physical world (e.g., Baillargeon et al. 1992; for a review, see Lockman 2000). In a way, most—if not all—scholars agree with that. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily imply that the knowledge acquired is embodied and corresponds to a simulation of the sensorimotor experience linked to its acquisition.
The manipulation-knowledge hypothesis can be viewed as an embodied approach to tool use because it posits that knowledge about how to use tools is based on specific tool-related motor representations. In this way, the technical-reasoning hypothesis is a non-embodied approach because it denies the existence of such tool-related motor representations.
This cascade mechanism is obviously reiterative.
Even if semantic knowledge appears to be neither necessary nor sufficient to actually use tools, it might be indispensable to create abstract and generalizable concepts associated with tools and objects (e.g., Lambon Ralph et al. 2017; De Bellis et al. 2018; Wurm and Caramazza 2019; see also: Bar et al. 2006; Rogers and McClelland 2004). Hence, whereas mechanical knowledge is necessary to actually use tools, semantic knowledge might be considered as a complementary addendum in order to construct object-related representations. Such knowledge might be usable in everyday life by a reasoning-based agent (i.e., humans or future artificial intelligence), in the context of a cognitive-oriented functioning. Such an integrated perspective has been recently suggested by Federico and Brandimonte (2020) by introducing the concept of “action reappraisal”. Furthermore, semantic knowledge can play a specific role in some specific tool-use situations, such as when people are asked to use tools presented in isolation (i.e., single tool use). Indeed, in such situations, semantic knowledge might be useful to inform the individual about the conventional use of the tool presented, thereby allowing the individual to generate the mechanical action associated through technical reasoning (Osiurak 2014). This can explain why patients with a selective semantic deficit can show difficulties when asked to show how to use a familiar tool presented in isolation but not when presented with its corresponding object (Corbett et al. 2015; Baumard et al. 2016; see also Sirigu et al. 1991; Hodges et al. 2000; Osiurak et al. 2008; Lesourd et al. 2016).
Technical-reasoning skills have also been shown to be a good predictor of cumulative performance in micro-society experiments in which participants have to perform a task (e.g., building a tower) as members of a chain (Osiurak et al. 2016; De Oliveira et al. 2019; Osiurak et al. 2020b, in press; see also Osiurak et al. submitted)..
According to the ecological/Gibsonian approach, animals can perceive directly the opportunities for action provided by the environment (i.e., affordances). As discussed above, this approach is viable only if affordances are considered as being restricted to the motor actions that are relative to the animal’s biomechanical/morphological properties (i.e., acting on). This approach can be articulated with the technical-reasoning hypothesis if we assume that technical reasoning is dedicated to form a representation of the tool-use action (i.e., acting with), which then guides the perception of the appropriate affordances (i.e., acting on; for discussion, see Osiurak et al. 2017). In this frame, we do not perceive affordances in order to determine how to use a tool with an object, but rather to realize the action intended by selecting and planning the appropriate motor actions. By contrast, it is difficult at a theoretical level to articulate the technical-reasoning hypothesis with the manipulation-knowledge hypothesis because both aim to explain how individuals determine how a tool has to be manipulated as a tool (i.e., either through technical reasoning or through the activation of manipulation knowledge). Interestingly, although both the ecological/Gibsonian approach and the manipulation-knowledge hypothesis can be labelled as embodied, they strongly diverge at a theoretical level (non-representational approach versus representational approach).
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This work was performed within the framework of the LABEX CORTEX (ANR-11-LABX-0042) of Université de Lyon, within the program “Investissements d’Avenir” (ANR-11- IDEX-0007) operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR).
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Osiurak, F., Federico, G. Four ways of (mis-)conceiving embodiment in tool use. Synthese 199, 3853–3879 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02960-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02960-1