ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates whether young children rely on haptic information to choose tools in simple tasks, and if adults' ratings of the task-appropriateness of tools correspond with tool selection in the same tasks. Children (4- and 5-years-old) and adults were asked to choose one of two objects identical in appearance and mass, but with different mass configurations, and to perform a precision task and a power task. It may be the case that young children focus on the properties of objects to be used as tools that can be detected visually and not haptically, and that the ability to use both sources of information develops during mid-childhood. The results suggest that although adults can identify tools that make good hammers, they may not select tools based on haptic information for a simple tool-using task such as ours, as evidenced by the lack of preference for either tool for either task.
