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Tool Use Is Just a Trick of the Mind

Posted by kdawson on from the my-tool-myself dept.

TwistedOne151 writes to recommend a ScienceNOW article describing the work of a team of Italian neurobiologists who have found the roots of the capacity for tool use in the primate brain: the brain treats the tool as part of the body. The experiment as described is passing clever.

18 of 326 comments (clear)

  1. Define:tool by Zekasu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, essentially, a computer is an extension of my body?

    Concievably, input, output, and expected responses could be considered an extension, but what about thought process? Is this similar to the human body considering a crutch as an extension of the body while walking?

    Somehow, I sense that "tool" is too broad of a word, or perhaps too distorted of a definition, to be used when referring to, well, tools. If I give a thousand monkeys one typewriter each, does that typerwriter become considered as an extension? I can understand a pair of pliers being considered a mechanical extension to the hand, but what about the actually pressing of keys?

    1. Re:Define:tool by Fourier404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd like to see the differences when you physically aim a gun and when you move the mouse while playing bf2.

    2. Re:Define:tool by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So, essentially, a computer is an extension of my body?

      Sure, why not? For a trained operator, the keyboard and mouse become second nature. Staring at the monitor, the operator learns to block out visual information outside of the screen. Many users even use headphones, further tying them to the machine.

      I can tell you that when my fingers dance across the keyboard, I'm not really putting a whole lot of thought into the keyboard. Instead, I'm putting thought into the words I'm attempting to type, or the command I'm attempting to communicate with the combination of keys.
      --
      Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
    3. Re:Define:tool by gowakuwa · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Have you ever seen a baby? To him the parts of his body including his hands and feet are not part of him. It's through experimentation that he becomes able to use them and to put them into his body space. The process for tool interiorization is probably the same.

    4. Re:Define:tool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Tool as a part of your body is only an intermediate step. You are skilled craftsman only when contact surface/line/point between the tool and material is part of you, is a thought in your mind and is shaped the way you shape it in your mind, without your conscious intervention.

    5. Re:Define:tool by KiloByte · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, in the first case, you're a proud american learning to protect his family That's a good thing to say if the cops spot you training in your mosque's backyard.
      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    6. Re:Define:tool by kripkenstein · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, there is variation in human experience, so I wouldn't suspect anything is 'wrong' with you. You might just experience sensation or talk about it differently.

      However, this experiment is not about suggestion. Done right, the lecturer doesn't tell the students what to expect before they try it for themselves.

      Anyhow, try this: hold a pencil, and close your eyes. Have a friend hold a book in front of you, and tell him/her to move it around for a while so you don't know where it is. Then try to find the book with the tip of the pencil, with your eyes closed, moving the pencil gently. What sensory experience do you have at the instant when you find the book?

    7. Re:Define:tool by Yvanhoe · · Score: 2, Insightful

      2) your experiment is a different kind of psychological experiment: it's an experiment in suggestion

      Even in that case, it proves that the brain can effectively provide such an illusion. The fact that one has to make a conscious effort to feel the pressure in the pen or that it occurs naturally are two different proofs of this capacity of the brain.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    8. Re:Define:tool by MenTaLguY · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The strength of the effect depends on how accustomed you are to using the tool in question. Pencils are probably a good choice for college students in a lecture, probably less so for others.

      If you drive a car on a regular basis, you've likely also experienced the phenomenon while driving: your proprioception extends to the body of the car, so that you can feel the texture of the road and (once you're used to the car's shape) develop a "sense" of how much space you have around the car. The car-as-prosthesis thing is also part of the reason that, if you're in an auto accident, you're much more likely to say "he hit me" than "his car hit my car".

      --

      DNA just wants to be free...
    9. Re:Define:tool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Fighting for individual freedom is entirely different than fighting to kill infidels or communists? or witches?

      People suck - we're all capable of doing terrible things in support of our beliefs, just because a very visible minority of one group has drawn attention to its particular capability for that doesn't mean that the rest of us are innocent.
  2. Mental tools... by Zarf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So, physical tool use in primates is result of a trick of the mind... activating and training certain regions of neurons to perceive the new tool as part of the body... what does it mean that I use a computer which is a mental tool? Does that mean my psyche is extended into my computer? If so, it would explain a great many things...

    I feel like I sort of knew this already. It make sense. In a video game I don't think about smashing "A", "B", or "X", "Y" I just think about the action I want to perform and I hit the right keys... after a learning period. Same with touch typing. I just think about characters and they come out of the keyboard. But, I can't think without a computer anymore... or at least if I don't have one I feel like part of my mind has gone missing. Perhaps it's the part that can spell? I mean I've got the firefox spell checker plugin or else this post would be full of badly spelled words.

    --
    [signature]
  3. But it is... by spiritraveller · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It should be no surprise that the brain treats tools as an extension of the body, because that's exactly what tools are.

    There is nothing that we do which does not affect the outside world. And there is nothing we do which the outside world does not affect. The illusion is in the initial perception of separateness and not in the realization that it is part of us.

    Treating the world as an extension of ourselves is a form of enlightenment, not trickery.

    1. Re:But it is... by ContractualObligatio · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm sure your scientific insight would make the researchers feel bad for conducting experiments rather than simply making assumptions.

  4. People are fantastic by tsa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I guess we all agree that tools are indeed percepted as parts of our body. Even computers. I always marvel at the things I do with computers without even thinking about it. A few weeks ago I had to explain to my aunt, who had never used a computer or anything else then typing and browsing before, how to rip a CD and put it on het mp3 player. That was about as hard for me as explaining how to hold a pen and write with it. It comes so natural I don't even think about it. Our brains are miraculous things. How difficult would our lives be if we had to think about how to use the knife every time we want to make a sandwich!

    BTW, is there anything known about diseases where people don't see tools as an extension of the body?

    --

    -- Cheers!

  5. Re:Actually not true by AKAImBatman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Competent driving requires time and practice...repetitive situations that are eventually rehearsed subconsciously (to the point of prediction) that make it appear that the driver is adept, when in actuality, there is a specific percentage of basic scenarios that have simply been memorized.
    Indeed. Just like competent walking or running requires time and practice. Repetitive situations that are eventually rehearsed subconsciously (to the point of prediction) that make it appear that the individual is adept at locomotion, when in actuality, there is a specific percentage of basic scenarios that have simply been memorized.

    Yet I can still attempt a long jump or attempt to skid my car in the snow without the memorized steps. I won't be very good at either one my first time out, but I'll "get the hang of it" after a while.

    You can't take a driver used to a sub-compact and expect them to apply their familiarity with a small sedan to a large tractor-trailer, as an example.
    Hey, you try waking up the next morning a foot taller and 150 pounds heavier, and lets see how well you take your first steps, Mister! ;-)
    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  6. Re:Someone got money for this? by ephemeralspecter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem is noone has performed this kind of quantative research before. Sure we all "knew" it, but there was a time when we all "knew" the world was flat. That's the point of rigorous scientific research. At least now we have a few words and pictures to point to and say, "see?" whenever we try to draw conclusions from their findings.

  7. Re:Actually quite true by mevets · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My piano teacher would demand that I practice each piece 'until my hands knew it'. I don't think she had any particular insight into monkeys, wrenches or the "F" areas of the brain; but TFA seems to superficially bolster her instinct. Or vise-a-versa.

    Later, learning to improvise seemed impossible until my hands 'knew' a catalog of idioms that could be readily applied and adapted opportunistically. Once the catalog reached a critical mass, improvisation became natural.

    Looking back, it seemed that programming followed a similar pattern. Maybe we can rewrite the rules:
    1. Learn by Rote.
    2. Accumulate.
    3. Profit!
    or maybe its the weed....

  8. This is old news.... by gerald626 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Just ask any musician.