How bipedalism shapes humans' actions with hand tools

The task for an embodied cognitive understanding of humans' actions with tools is to elucidate how the human body, as a whole, supports the perception of affordances and dexterous action with objects in relation to other objects. Here, we focus on the relationship between humans' actions w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences 2024-10, Vol.379 (1911), p.20230152
Main Authors: Fragaszy, Dorothy M, Kelty-Stephen, Damian G, Mangalam, Madhur
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological Evolution
Hand - physiology
Humans
Locomotion - physiology
Posture
Tool Use Behavior
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Summary:The task for an embodied cognitive understanding of humans' actions with tools is to elucidate how the human body, as a whole, supports the perception of affordances and dexterous action with objects in relation to other objects. Here, we focus on the relationship between humans' actions with handheld tools and bipedal posture. Posture plays a pivotal role in shaping animals' perception and action dynamics. While humans stand and locomote bipedally, other primates predominantly employ quadrupedal postures and locomotion, relying on both hands and feet to support the body. Drawing upon evidence from evolutionary biology, developmental psychology and performance studies, we elucidate the influence of bipedalism on our actions with objects and on our proficiency in using tools. We use the metaphor of cascades to capture the dynamic, nonlinear transformations in morphology and behaviour associated with posture and the use of tools across evolutionary and developmental timescales. Recent work illustrates the promise of multifractal cascade analysis to reveal nonlinear, cross-scale interactions across the entire body in real-time, supporting the perception of affordances for actions with tools. Cascade analysis enriches our comprehension of real-time performance and facilitates exploration of the relationships among whole-body coordination, individual development, and evolutionary processes.This article is part of the theme issue 'Minds in movement: embodied cognition in the age of artificial intelligence'.
ISSN:0962-8436
1471-2970
1471-2970
DOI:10.1098/rstb.2023.0152