How can I use it? The role of functional fixedness in the survival-processing paradigm

Abstract

After imagining being stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land without any basic survival material and rating objects with respect to their relevance in this situation, participants show superior memory performance for these objects compared to a control scenario. A possible mechanism responsible for this memory advantage is the richness and distinctiveness with which information is encoded in the survival-scenario condition. When confronted with the unusual task of thinking about how an object can be used in a life-threatening context, participants will most likely consider both common and uncommon (i.e., novel) functions of this object. These ideas about potential functions may later serve as powerful retrieval cues that boost memory performance. We argue that objects differ in their potential to be used as novel, creative survival tools. Some objects may be low in functional fixedness, meaning that it is possible to use them in many different ways. Other objects, in contrast, may be high in functional fixedness, meaning that the possibilities to use them in non-standard ways is limited. We tested experimentally whether functional fixedness of objects moderates the strength of the survival-processing advantage compared to a moving control scenario. As predicted, we observed an interaction of the functional fixedness level with scenario type: The survival-processing memory advantage was more pronounced for objects low in functional fixedness compared to those high in functional fixedness. These results are in line with the richness-of-encoding explanation of the survival-processing advantage.

Survival processing occupies the central bottleneck of cognitive processing: A psychological refractory period analysis

“…2 ). In general, the survival advantage is largest for items receiving the lowest relevance ratings; it tends to decrease with increasing ratings and to vanish for the highest rating, but never becomes significantly negative, again replicating previous results (e.g., Kroneisen et al, 2013 , 2014 , 2016 , 2021 , 2022 ). 5…”

“…This pattern replicates similar results we found in previous research (cf. Kroneisen & Erdfelder, 2011;Kroneisen et al, 2013Kroneisen et al, , 2014Kroneisen et al, , 2016Kroneisen et al, , 2021Kroneisen et al, , 2022.…”

“…These ideas may later serve as powerful retrieval cues in the free recall test. By contrast, shifting encoding processes away from thoughts about possible object functions or even suppressing such thoughts reduces the survival processing effect (Bell et al, 2015 ; Kroneisen & Erdfelder, 2011 ; Kroneisen et al, 2013 , 2021 , 2022 ).…”

Functional fixedness in chimpanzees

“…Finally, it would be interesting to investigate whether there are different levels of functional fixedness in apes depending on how many possible functions an object can have (i.e. the degree of functional fixedness, see 36 )—and whether there is a difference between naturally occurring objects (e.g. a stone found on the ground), objects produced by simple manipulations (e.g.…”

One Function One Tool? A Review on Mutual Exclusivity in Tool Use Learning in Human and Non-human Species

“…Additional EEG data suggests that the participants who were primed might have relied on top-down control to overcome the fixation as they all showed higher alpha power (related to the activation of top-down processes) regardless of each participant’s level of functional fixedness ( Camarda et al, 2018 ). Interestingly, regardless of the learning modality (reading, watching the tool’s function or physical manipulation of the tool), adults showed the same level of functional fixedness in puzzle tasks ( Munoz-Rubke et al, 2018 ) and they had more difficulties to find other uses for objects rated with high functional fixedness (i.e., objects usually restricted to their common use, such as a desktop) as opposed to those with lower functional fixedness (such as a blanket) in an imagined survival scenario ( Kroneisen et al, 2021 ).…”