{"pk":27463,"title":"Simulation and heuristics in flexible tool use","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Humans are remarkably flexible tool users. We not only recognize a wide range of existing tools, but also producenew tools by seeing objects in new ways, or by making or repurposing objects to solve a problem confronting us. Here westudy the cognitive processes supporting flexible tool use, including deciding what makes a good tool, and how it should beused. Participants played a video game which requires selecting an object from a set of options and placing it in a virtualphysical scene in order to accomplish goals such as tipping another object over or launching it into a container. People appearto use a combination of simulation-based planning and experience-based heuristics: fast heuristics drive the initial selectionand placement of a candidate tool, and that solution can then be refined by several rounds of mental simulation interspersedwith trial-and-error experimentation to rapidly converge on goal-satisfying solutions.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Posters: Member Abstracts","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3w15m94q","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Kelsey","middle_name":"","last_name":"Allen","name_suffix":"","institution":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology","department":""},{"first_name":"Kevin","middle_name":"","last_name":"Smith","name_suffix":"","institution":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology","department":""},{"first_name":"Josh","middle_name":"","last_name":"Tenenbaum","name_suffix":"","institution":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2017-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/27463/galley/17099/download/"}]}