ABSTRACT
The sling used in this experiment is of the simplest type: a wooden ball 5 cm in diameter, tied to the end of a string that the subject releases after swinging it around a few times, aiming it at a target. Even very young children manage to do this and, according to Diodore de Sicile, the inhabitants of the Balearic Islands were particularly good at it because the mothers used to hang their tots' bread on the end of a pole and make them go hungry until they had hit it using their sling (Encyclopedia, Diderot and D'Alembert, 1751, p. 337). However, sensorimotor success does not always lead to accu rate conceptualization (in this case, of how one aims and the object's flight path) and it is interesting to find out why.
