Mental fixation and metacognitive predictions of insight in creative problem solving

Storm, Benjamin C.; Hickman, Michelle L.

doi:10.1080/17470218.2014.966730

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…This fixation occurs because TRIZ is problem-driven and follows logical steps guided by analysis, situational context and constraints (Cross 2006;Crilly 2015). Such fixation can unintentionally hinder potential creative leaps that are needed during design (Storm & Hickman 2015). In contrast to TRIZ, brainstorming enables potential creative leaps by encouraging designers to suspend evaluation and relax constraints.…”

Section: Concept Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept generation techniques change patterns of brain activation during engineering design

Shealy

Gero

et al. 2020

Des. Sci.

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This paper presents the results of studying the brain activations of 30 engineering students when using three different design concept generation techniques: brainstorming, morphological analysis, and TRIZ. Changes in students’ brain activation in the prefrontal cortex were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The results are based on the area under the curve analysis of oxygenated hemodynamic response as well as an assessment of functional connectivity using Pearson’s correlation to compare students’ cognitive brain activations using these three different ideation techniques. The results indicate that brainstorming and morphological analysis demand more cognitive activation across the prefrontal cortex (PFC) compared to TRIZ. The highest cognitive activation when brainstorming and using morphological analysis is in the right dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) and ventrolateral PFC. These regions are associated with divergent thinking and ill-defined problem-solving. TRIZ produces more cognitive activation in the left DLPFC. This region is associated with convergent thinking and making judgments. Morphological analysis and TRIZ also enable greater coordination (i.e., synchronized activation) between brain regions. These findings offer new evidence that structured techniques like TRIZ reduce cognitive activation, change patterns of activation and increase coordination between regions in the brain.

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Section: Concept Generationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept generation techniques change patterns of brain activation during engineering design

Shealy

Gero

et al. 2020

Des. Sci.

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“…It is easy to become fixated by related, but unviable, associates of the problem words in this task. Moreover, exposure to misleading associates before or during RAT attempts makes solution even less likely by increasing the accessibility of misleading information, which blocks solution (Smith & Blankenship, 1991;Storm & Hickman, 2015;Wiley, 1998). Regardless of the type of problem (RAT problems, AUT tasks, design tasks, object-use insight puzzles), an initial search through related associations will take place, during which more immediately activated information is the most likely to impede success (i.e., correct solutions, original ideas).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Need something different? Here’s what’s been done: Effects of examples and task instructions on creative idea generation

George

Wiley

2020

Mem Cogn

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Creative idea generation involves search and retrieval of memory. There is a default tendency to rely too heavily on familiar or easily accessible information during idea generation, especially in tasks such as the alternate uses task (AUT) that involve generating novel uses for common objects. Knowing which obvious ideas to avoid may be important in creating more original ideas. The present experiments tested whether instructions encouraging participants to avoid a set of common example ideas would enhance originality or cause fixation on the AUT. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that presenting a verbal list of common example uses along with a warning to avoid those uses enhanced originality. In contrast, when the example ideas were presented in the absence of any "avoid" instructions, there was no benefit on originality, indicating that mere example exposure did not stimulate more creative idea generation. The design of Experiment 2 was parallel to that of Experiment 1, but the verbal examples were replaced with visually depicted examples. Exposure to the visual examples led to reduced originality, suggesting fixation. Although the "avoid" instruction helped to mitigate this fixation, it did not enhance originality beyond the no-example condition. The results suggest that under some conditions presenting unoriginal examples along with an "avoid" warning can allow people to shift their focus away from easily retrieved ideas and toward more novel approaches. The results are also consistent with prior work showing a negative impact of visual presentation of examples on creativity.

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“…To strengthen the scope of our argumentation, we decided not to detail on this notion. Please see Mealor and Dienes (2013) ; Storm and Hickman (2015) , or Thompson et al (2011) . A particular emphasize may be laid on the concept of experience-based metacognitive feelings (e.g., Koriat and Levy-Sadot, 1999 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Intuition and Insight: Two Processes That Build on Each Other or Fundamentally Differ?

2016

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Intuition and insight are intriguing phenomena of non-analytical mental functioning: whereas intuition denotes ideas that have been reached by sensing the solution without any explicit representation of it, insight has been understood as the sudden and unexpected apprehension of the solution by recombining the single elements of a problem. By face validity, the two processes appear similar; according to a lay perspective, it is assumed that intuition precedes insight. Yet, predominant scientific conceptualizations of intuition and insight consider the two processes to differ with regard to their (dis-)continuous unfolding. That is, intuition has been understood as an experience-based and gradual process, whereas insight is regarded as a genuinely discontinuous phenomenon. Unfortunately, both processes have been investigated differently and without much reference to each other. In this contribution, we therefore set out to fill this lacuna by examining the conceptualizations of the assumed underlying cognitive processes of both phenomena, and by also referring to the research traditions and paradigms of the respective field. Based on early work put forward by Bowers et al. (1990, 1995), we referred to semantic coherence tasks consisting of convergent word triads (i.e., the solution has the same meaning to all three clue words) and/or divergent word triads (i.e., the solution means something different with respect to each clue word) as an excellent kind of paradigm that may be used in the future to disentangle intuition and insight experimentally. By scrutinizing the underlying mechanisms of intuition and insight, with this theoretical contribution, we hope to launch lacking but needed experimental studies and to initiate scientific cooperation between the research fields of intuition and insight that are currently still separated from each other.

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Mental fixation and metacognitive predictions of insight in creative problem solving

Cited by 17 publications

References 44 publications

Concept generation techniques change patterns of brain activation during engineering design

Concept generation techniques change patterns of brain activation during engineering design

Need something different? Here’s what’s been done: Effects of examples and task instructions on creative idea generation

Intuition and Insight: Two Processes That Build on Each Other or Fundamentally Differ?

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