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 imagining alternative uses for familiar objects, thereby hindering creative problem-solving. When faced with a novel challenge, people often overlook unconventional solutions because they are fixated on an object's standard function. Overcoming functional fixedness requires a deliberate effort to think beyond conventional associations and re-evaluate the properties of objects in new contexts.

Professor: Let me illustrate this with a classic experiment. Participants were given a box of thumbtacks, a candle, and a book of matches, and were asked to attach the candle to a wall so that it could burn without dripping wax on the floor. Many struggled, because they saw the box only as a container for thumbtacks, not as a potential shelf. The solution was to empty the box, tack it to the wall, and place the candle inside it. But in a different group, the thumbtacks were presented separately from the box, and participants solved it much faster—they immediately saw the box as a platform. So the first group suffered from functional fixedness: they couldn't break away from the box's typical role as a storage container.