

Functional Fixedness - The Candle Problem - ehsanul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_fixedness#Candle_Box

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psygnisfive
The horrendously misleading part of this is that the experiment says to attach
the _candle_ to the wall. The lexical semantics of "attach" do not permit that
you "attach the candle to the wall" by tacking a box to the wall and placing
the candle in it. The verb attach simply doesn't mean that -- this
demonstrates nothing.

Further, numerous studies have been done regarding lexical and conceptual
semantics and the role of direct objects in semantic interpretation, and they
demonstrate quite simply that whatever the direct object is of a sentence,
this tends to be an affected item. Supporting a candle with a box is not
affecting the candle in the ways relevant to human cognition, while tacking it
to the wall, or melting it, _is_. So the phrasing again was misleading.

While I'm sure functional fixedness is a real phenomena, I would bet that it
isn't even remotely as simple as this particular experiment suggested, and
that a wide variety of linguistic techniques can affect how well people are at
this. In fact, on the main page for the Candle Problem it's point out that a)
using "box _and_ tacks" instead of "box _of_ tacks" in the instructions
improves performance, while b) offering a monetary incentive _decreases_
performance. So before you get all hyped up about how you want to think
outside the box because my gosh imagine what awesomeness functional fixedness
is preventing you from seeing, stop to consider that noone's got any clue
what's really going on inside the mind, and you're probably just as likely to
screw yourself by trying to manipulate yourself this way as you are to benefit
yourself.

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ehsanul
I not sure your argument about semantics applies. First of all, we do not know
if the word "attach" was used in the original experiment. In fact, the main
candle problem page says this:

 _The test presents the participant with the following task: how to fix a
lighted candle on a wall (a cork board) in a way so the candle wax won't drip
onto the table below._

The semantics in that phrasing of the problem seem alright.

Now, consider the experiment by Adamson. In that case, presenting the
materials in a certain manner changed how they were made use of. This is
clearly independant of any semantics. You may want to watch the video nreece
linked to.

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nreece
The Candle Problem was used as an insightful example by Daniel Pink in his TED
talk on the surprising science of motivation -
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y>

~~~
ehsanul
Yeah, that's how I originally found out about it, and would have linked to
that talk. Except, TED talks often don't seem to get many points here, which
seems strange to me given the community.

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sesqu
Tacking a box onto a wall is a horrible solution. You'd need two or three long
tacks, a light candle, and I'd probably put the tacks in at an angle, too. And
then you'd need to solve the problem of the falling candle.

I'm not sure what _would_ be a good solution, since the candle would need to
be placed at least 5cm away from the wall, and there just aren't materials for
that.

