Drawing from research and theory from variety of disciplines, Osiurak and Reynaud (O&R) offer a unified cognitive approach to cumulative technological culture, arguing that it begins with non-social cognitive skills that allow humans to learn and develop new technical information. We agree with the authors that technical reasoning can be considered a critical part of cumulative technological culture. However, although it is important to consider non-social cognitive skills, here, we argue that social learning is essential for humans to acquire technical information. Thus, an examination of developmental psychological research focusing on how children acquire knowledge through interactions with others is critical to understanding why social mechanisms are a central part of children's technical reasoning skills.

Children are curious learners who actively seek information from others, often caregivers. At an early age, infants have the capacity to engage in social referencing, using eye gaze (e.g., Brooks & Meltzoff Reference Brooks and Meltzoff2015), affective facial expressions and pointing to get an adult's attention (e.g., Butterworth Reference Butterworth2003) and decide what to do in a situation. As children's linguistic abilities develop, children use questions and explanations from caregivers to acquire knowledge (e.g., Butler et al. Reference Butler, Ronfard and Corriveau2020; Chouinard Reference Chouinard2007; Frazier et al. Reference Frazier, Gelman and Wellman2009; Harris Reference Harris2012; Harris et al. Reference Harris, Koenig, Corriveau and Jaswal2018; Kurkul & Corriveau Reference Kurkul and Corriveau2018; Ronfard et al. Reference Ronfard, Zambrana, Hermansen and Kelemen2018). More specifically, children use testimony from adults to learn about a variety of topics including scientific (e.g., Callanan & Oakes Reference Callanan and Oakes1992; Tabors et al. Reference Tabors, Roach, Snow, Dickinson and Tabors2001; Willard et al. Reference Willard, Busch, Cullum, Letourneau, Sobel, Callanan and Legare2019) and mathematical information (e.g., Hanner et al. Reference Hanner, Braham, Elliott and Libertus2019; Levine et al. Reference Levine, Suriyakham, Rowe, Huttenlocher and Gunderson2010; Ramani et al. Reference Ramani, Rowe, Eason and Leech2015). This is especially true when children are learning about scientific phenomena that are challenging to understand through first-hand observation alone such as the shape of the earth or the existence of germs. Similarly, acquiring an understanding of scientific processes such as electricity often require more than first hand-observation because the mechanisms are sometimes opaque or associated with a time delay (Corriveau et al. Reference Corriveau, Min, Chin and Doan2016; Harris & Corriveau Reference Harris, Corriveau, Einav and Robinson2014; Harris & Koenig Reference Harris and Koenig2006).

Moreover, children often rely on information from others to enhance their first-hand understanding of mechanisms underlying a causal process (Callanan & Jipson Reference Callanan, Jipson, Crowley, Schunn and Okada2001; Crowley & Siegler Reference Crowley and Siegler1999; Crowley et al. Reference Crowley, Callanan, Jipson, Galco, Topping and Shrager2001a; Reference Crowley, Callanan, Tenenbaum and Allen2001b; Haden Reference Haden2010). To date, a substantial number of studies have found that through interactions with children, adult explanations serve as a source of information that significantly contribute to children's scientific understanding and learning (e.g., Jipson et al. Reference Jipson, Gülgöz and Gelman2016; Lombrozo et al. Reference Lombrozo, Bonawitz and Scalise2018; Vasilyeva & Lombrozo Reference Vasilyeva, Lombrozo, Rogers, Rau, Zhu and Kalish2018; Willard et al. Reference Willard, Busch, Cullum, Letourneau, Sobel, Callanan and Legare2019). Through parent–child conversations, children learn about causal mechanisms, demonstrate how to generate as well as test hypotheses and share important mechanistic information, all of which enhances 4- and 5-year-old children's ability to transfer knowledge to subsequent scientific activities (e.g., Kurkul et al. under review; Leech et al., Reference Leech, Haber, Jalkh and Corriveauin press). In their target article, O&R propose that cumulative technological culture emerges because of humans' non-social cognitive skills. Although technical reasoning, especially the ability to generalize what is learned from one situation to another one, is a fundamental part of the humans' capacity to develop new techniques or knowledge, we argue that these skills develop through interactions with others, suggesting that social mechanisms are integral to cumulative technological culture.

In sum, the unified cognitive approach to cumulative technological culture highlights the importance of technical reasoning skills in humans' ability to acquire and develop new content.

However, only focusing on the cognitive structures under this framework does not account for the fundamental role of social learning in the emergence of children's technical reasoning skills. We argue for a more integrated approach to cumulative technical culture, grounded in sociocultural theory (e.g., Vygotsky Reference Vygotsky1978). Such an approach should highlight the important cognitive skills children bring to bear to acquire technical information, yet also recognize that most learning situations occur in interactions with others. Thus, children's knowledge is strengthened through conversations with and observation of others.