What Gestalt psychologists call the reforming/reframing of a problem to help find a solution. This is useful to overcome fixation and generate insight.

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

The instantaneous realization of the solution to a problem.

Insight

People have a tendency to focus in on a specific part of a problem which can prevent them from solving that problem.

Fixation

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Nelson Education.


Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience

Restructuring

Fixation on a familiar function of an object. It can prevent people from finding a solution. The candle problem and two string problem are canonical examples.

Functional fixedness

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias and a specific type of mental set that restricts a person to using an object only in its traditional manner. This fixation on an object's conventional function can impede problem-solving by obscuring novel uses. Research has shown that functional fixedness is a cross-cultural phenomenon, experienced by individuals in both industrialized and non-industrialized societies.

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