When you have used a particular tool, item, or object for one sole purpose again and again, your brain can sometimes associate it with only that use. This concept is called functional fixedness.

Problem solving can be inefficient when the solution requires subjects to generate an atypical function for an object and the object's typical function has been primed. Subjects become "fixed" on the ...

In a fascinating 2007 social experiment, the Grammy-winning violinist Joshua Bell posed as a street musician busking at the Washington, D.C., Metro station. Despite typically attracting standing-room ...

You probably know the line, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet!" from Juliet's famous balcony soliloquy. Not only are these words a rich way to ...

“Thinking outside the box,” has become the annoying phrase we hear in commercials and bad business meetings. It stems from an actual psychological concept called functional fixedness. Funnily enough, ...

The most famous cognitive obstacle to innovation is functional fixedness — an idea first articulated in the 1930s by Karl Duncker — in which people tend to fixate on the common use of an object. For ...

Any five-year-old has no trouble turning an old blanket and a couple of chairs into an impenetrable fort. But as we get older, knowledge and experience increasingly displace imagination and our ...