Visual and haptic exploratory procedures in children's judgments about tool function

Preschool children (M age = 4 years, 7 months) verbally judged whether a spoon would function to transport a target object (small versus large candy) and whether a stick would function to stir a target substance (sugar versus gravel). The spoons varied in bowl size, and sticks varied in rigidity. Children's judgments were sensitive to task goals (transport versus mixing), to tool properties (size and rigidity), and to target properties (size to be transported; resistance to mixing). Moreover, children used appropriate perceptual exploration to determine tool function. Judgments about transport were made after visual inspection of the spoon, and judgments about rigidity were made after haptic exploration of the stick. Children did not directly perform the task in order to judge whether the tool would be adequate. Differential visual and haptic object exploration during a perceptual-comparison task additionally confirmed the role of perceptual exploration in determining tool function.