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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.
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]
The task was to fix the candles on the wall without any additional elements. The difficulty of this problem arises from the functional fixedness of the box, which originally contained thumb-tacks. It is a container in the problem situation but must be used as a shelf in the solution situation. Other examples for this type of mental ...
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 ...
Functional fixedness, a tendency limiting a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. [16] Law of the instrument, an over-reliance on a familiar tool or methods, ignoring or under-valuing alternative approaches. "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
A specific example of rigidity is functional fixedness, which is a difficulty conceiving new uses for familiar objects. [3] History
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.
Functional fixedness is the tendency to ascribe specific functions to respective objects. Dunker sees functional fixedness as a "Mental block against using an object in a new way that is required to solve a problem", as described in his cognitive performance test, known as the candle problem .