Commentary: Effects of dividing attention on memory for declarative and procedural aspects of tool use

Abstract

Roy and Park () developed the thesis that human tool use is based on a cooperative interaction of declarative and procedural memory systems (Roy and Park, ; Roy et al., ). This thesis is at odds with recent theoretical and empirical advances. Here, we discuss the validity of this thesis, suggesting that the declarative vs. procedural memory distinction is not suited for understanding the cognitive specificity of human tool use, namely, the ability to reason about physical object properties (Osiurak, ). When we use a physical tool, such as a knife or a hammer, we have to manipulate it in order