The Editors' Intro to the collection of papers on ``Tasks, Tools, and Techniques''

What is it about?

Tasks, tools, and techniques that we perform, use, and acquire, define the elements of expertise which we value as the hallmarks of goal-driven behavior. Somehow, the creation of tools enables us to define new tasks, or is it that the envisioning of new tasks drives us to invent new tools? Or maybe it is that new tools engender new techniques which then result in new tasks? This jumble of issues will be explored and discussed in this diverse collection of papers. Individually, few of the papers are related to each other by topic or by techniques of analysis. Collectively, all focus on tasks performed using tools and discuss the techniques of tool use which enable differences in performance and expertise across individuals, societies, and (even) species.

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Why is it important?

The 11 papers in this topic were written by researchers with a common interest in tool use—but the specifics of their research foci varies vastly from one research group to another. One paper brings a dynamic systems perspective to driver behavior that is all about being a part of the tool of car driving (Morris, Craig, & Mirman, 2021). Another worries about whether the evolution of symbolic language and tool use was independent or dependent on each other, and if so, whether the traces of these developments still remain in the human brain (Osiurak, Cretel, Uomini, Lesourd, & Reynaud, 2021). A third takes a cognitive psychology perspective to examine what our tools for professional sports, eating dinner, and other daily activities tell us about the role of expertise in tool embodiment (Weser & Proffitt, 2021). Another seeks to map the conceptual landscape of relations between the embodied mind and various artifacts (Heersmink, 2021). Yet another (Sterelny, 2021) explores the subsistence technology of forager communities in a discussion that evokes the stories of William Buckley and his life among the Australian aborigines in the early 1800s. Another takes an expertise perspective to explore how the techniques that individuals develop for using the tools of Tetris lead some players toward performance plateaus while enabling others to leap to the next level of skill (Gray & Banerjee, 2021).

Perspectives