Question

identify and explain two cognitive barriers to problem solving.Provide two examples of each barrier.

Answer 1

These are key barries in problem solving

• Confirmation bias
• Mental set
• Functional fixedness
• Unnecessary constraints
• Irrelevant information

Functional Fixedness
This is about not thinking creatively. It is a narrow mind-set. Functional Fixedness comes from people thinking that an object has only one function.

For example; a jug can only be used to pour fluids; it can’t be used as a mixing bowl. It can be summarized as ‘You can’t do that’. Functional Fixedness affects the time taken to make a decision. If you don’t have a mixing bowl, but won’t use the jug, you waste time going to buy a new mixing bowl. Because it relates to objects, often caused by an intellectual or environmental block.

Irrelevant Information
This is information that is not needed to solve the problem, often caused by people diverging from the problem itself, onto other topics they feel are related or presenting too much information.

Irrelevant information hinders problem solving as it slows the process down, can cause confusion or misunderstandings.

A brainstorming session can be impaired because people want to go off topic. This is why many brainstorming sessions have a facilitator to get things back on track. When gathering information, it can be getting distracted and looking at something that is interesting but not useful. It can result in too much information being collected, and people having trouble absorbing it.

For example, giving a problem-solving group full copies of all the information found, rather than summarising it as headlines, a graph or a mind map.