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Published online 22 June 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.587
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How tools change the brain
Perception of arm size altered after using mechanical grabber.
Researchers have found convincing evidence that using a tool for just a few minutes can have a lasting effect on how someone perceives the size and position of their body.
A team led by Alessandro Farnè and Lucilla Cardinali of Claude Bernard University in Lyon, France, assessed the effects of using a grabber tool, similar to those used by litter collectors, on volunteers' body schema — the brain's sense of where different body parts are in space.
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I simply quote John Bellamy Foster from his book, Marx's Ecology, Materialism & Nature, Monthly Review Foundation(Indian Edition),2001, Page 235: "The understanding of the evolution of human beings from their primate ancestors could be explained as arising from labor, that is, from the conditions of human subsistence, and from the transformation by means of tool-making.... In this way Engels developed his distinct theory of gene-culture co-evolution, whereby the development of pre-history of the human species-of erect posture, of human hand, and finally the human brain- could be seen as arising dialectically out of the material process of labor, whereby human beings satisfied their subsistence needs by transforming their relation to nature through tool-making and production." Touche'!
I simply quote John Bellamy Foster from his book, Marx's Ecology, Materialism & Nature, Monthly Review Foundation(Indian Edition),2001, Page 235: "The understanding of the evolution of human beings from their primate ancestors could be explained as arising from labor, that is, from the conditions of human subsistence, and from the transformation by means of tool-making.... In this way Engels developed his distinct theory of gene-culture co-evolution, whereby the development of pre-history of the human species-of erect posture, of human hand, and finally the human brain- could be seen as arising dialectically out of the material process of labor, whereby human beings satisfied their subsistence needs by transforming their relation to nature through tool-making and production." Touche'!
A pretty common illustration to the effect described is conducting an orchestra: those using a baton are soon accustomed to narrower motions of the hand than those doing it with no baton - just go to concerts and observe.