Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: Fixation in Problem Solving The notion of fixation refers to an unhelpful reliance on the past during problem solving, when a new perspective is needed (e.g., Duncker, 1935/1945; Scheerer, 1963). Although the concept was introduced in psychology, fixation may occur in many other domains. Recent studies in the field of engineering design, for example, have suggested that presentation of pictorial examples with a tobe-solved problem may lead to fixation in design, even in cases where the example is specifically described as problematic (Jansson & Smith, 1991; Purcell & Gero, 1996; Purcell, Williams, Gero, & Colbron, 1993). The inherently cognitive nature of the design process makes these findings of potential significance to cognitive psychology. The design-fixation studies suggest that fixation occurs when the physical characteristics of the example design overlap with the expertise of the designer. However, none of those studies examined fixation in a group of nonspecialists. Fixation may affect equally designers and naive participants alike. This study examined whether fixation occurs when non-expert individuals are exposed to a laboratory design-problem-solving situation. Our aim was to investigate whether the inclusion of examples would negatively influence performance in a design problemsolving task. According to the example-expertise overlap hypothesis, introduced by Purcell et al. (1993), one would expect negligible fixation with naive participants.
Authors: E Chrysikou, Robert W. Weisberg
Institution: Temple University
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2624460184