Young children spontaneously invent three different types of associative tool use behaviour.

E Reindl, C Tennie, I A Apperly, Z Lugosi, S R Beck

Open access · goldAbstract read

In one paragraph

Article in Evolutionary human sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

2citing papers in PubMed

1.9field-weighted citation impact, top 15% of its field

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 7 citations in OpenAlex.

Object manipulation scaffolds the development of tool use in children.iScience · 2026
Article
Children's limited tooling ability in a novel concurrent tool use task supports the innovation gap.Scientific reports · 2024
Article

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.

E ReindlSchool of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Brimingham, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1594-1367

C TennieDepartment for Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.

I A ApperlySchool of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Brimingham, UK.

Z LugosiDivision of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK.

S R BeckSchool of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Brimingham, UK.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6426-1603

University of Birmingham · GBUniversity of St Andrews · GBUniversity of Stirling · GBUniversity of Tübingen · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Associative Tool Use (ATU) describes the use of two or more tools in combination, with the literature further differentiating between Tool set use, Tool composite use, Sequential tool use and Secondary tool use. Research investigating the cognitive processes underlying ATU has shown that some primate and bird species spontaneously invent Tool set and Sequential tool use. Yet studies with humans are sparse. Whether children are also able to spontaneously invent ATU behaviours and at what age this ability emerges is poorly understood. We addressed this gap in the literature with two experiments involving preschoolers (E1,

Indexed as

Associative tool useMetatool useMultifunctional tool useProblem-solvingSequential tool useTool set useTool use

Identifiers

PMID37588934

DOI10.1017/ehs.2022.4

PMCPMC10426097

OpenAlexW4210830695

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceCC BY

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.