PSYB57H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Frontal Lobe, Routledge, Psychonomic Society
Document Summary
This chapter examines how we think in order to solve problems. In classical approaches, gestalt psychologists focused on insight problems, solutions to which required the problem solver to consider different angles, and were often characterized by gestalt switches a sudden change in how information is organized. In his examination of how past experience influences our problem-solving, Duncker claims that our initial analysis of the situation often leads us to adopt functional fixedness. Functional fixedness is a barrier to effective problem solving and refers to an inability to see beyond the most common uses for an object. Hints, in some cases, help people overcome this phenomenon. Solutions to problems can involve insight or they can be solved without insight. In the latter case, participants are said to experience a feeling of warmth or a feeling of knowing. Insight solutions, on the other hand, are said to arrive suddenly, involuntarily, and in an all-or-none fashion.