← all facts
perception
Common tools often become invisible when you need new uses.
A 1945 study found that participants struggled to solve problems when the necessary tools were already being used for their intended purpose.
The mind gets locked into the 'fixed' function of an object. To see a new use, you have to mentally 'deconstruct' the object and ignore what it was designed to do.
The more you know an object, the less you see its potential.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Karl Duncker, 1945, Functional Fixedness
- What the check found
- Karl Duncker coined the term 'functional fixedness' in his 1945 monograph 'On Problem-Solving,' where he demonstrated how prior knowledge of an object's intended use hinders an individual's ability to use it in a novel way.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.