托福口语 Task 3

In psychology, the concept of 'functional fixedness' refers to a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. This mental block prevents individuals from seeing alternative uses for familiar objects, thereby hindering creative problem-solving. When faced with a novel challenge, people often fail to recognize that an object can serve a different function beyond its typical purpose, leading to ineffective solutions or an inability to solve the problem at all.

Professor: Let me illustrate this with a classic experiment. Participants were given a box of thumbtacks, a candle, and a book of matches, and asked to attach the candle to the wall so it could burn without dripping wax on the floor. Many struggled because they tried to tack the candle directly to the wall or melt the wax to stick it—both failed. The solution was to empty the thumbtack box, tack it to the wall as a platform, and place the candle inside. The participants couldn't see the box as anything but a container for thumbtacks. That's functional fixedness—they were stuck on the box's usual role. Once they overcame that mental block, the problem became simple.