Familiarity with an object's usual purpose blocks seeing an unusual use for it.
Duncker's 1945 candle problem: given a candle, a box of tacks and matches, few think to empty the box and use it as a shelf. Presenting the tacks outside the box roughly doubles the solve rate.
In practice
- A team with a fault in a bolted assembly does not think to use the bracket as a spacer, because it is a bracket.
- A household with a broken lamp buys a new one rather than use the working bulb elsewhere, because the bulb belongs to the lamp.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Creativity & Work
- Essay
- What gets in the way of good work