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Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used. The concept of functional fixedness originated in Gestalt psychology , a movement in psychology that emphasizes holistic processing.
In psychology, rigidity, or mental rigidity, refers to an obstinate inability to yield or a refusal to appreciate another person's viewpoint or emotions and the tendency to perseverate, which is the inability to change habits and modify concepts and attitudes once developed.
A specific form of mental set is functional fixedness, in which someone fails to see the variety of uses to which an object can be put. [3] [6] [9] An example would be someone who needs a weight but fails to use an easily available hammer because their mental set is to think of a hammer as for a specific purpose. [6]
Functional fixedness is an impaired ability to discover a new use for an object, owing to the subject's previous use of the object in a functionally dissimilar context. It can also be deemed a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used.
The candle problem or candle task, also known as Duncker's candle problem, is a cognitive performance test, measuring the influence of functional fixedness on a participant's problem solving capabilities. The test was created by Gestalt psychologist Karl Duncker [1] and published by him in 1935. [2]
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Karl Duncker, another Gestalt psychologist who studied problem solving, [45]: 370 coined the term functional fixedness for describing the difficulties in both visual perception and problem solving that arise from the fact that one element of a whole situation already has a (fixed) function that has to be changed in order to perceive something ...