Unfixing Design Fixation: From Cause to Computer Simulation.

This paper argues that design fixation, in part, entails fixation at the level of meta-representation, the representation of the relation between a representation and its reference. In this paper, we present a mathematical model that mimics the idea of how fixation can occur at the meta-representation level. In this model, new abstract concepts derived from the meta-representation are not simple combina- tions of the design ideas expressed in the primary representation. Instead, the process of meta-representation corresponds to the abstraction of new features at a higher, hierarchically separated level of representation from an existing one. We show a computational process of pattern extraction from existing design representations that results in the crystallization of design ideas or 'chunks' at an abstract level. The relation between the representation and its referent is explicitly described in these 'chunks', yet the 'chunks' have different properties from the properties of the original representation. THE FACADE OF FIXATION In Maier's classic study on functional fixation (Maier, 1931), subjects are placed in a room with two cords hanging from the ceiling, one near a wall and one in the center of the room, and with a number of objects including a tool (pliers). The subject's challenge is to tie the two cords together; however, the cords are suffi- ciently far apart that it is not possible for the subject to outstretch arms to reach the two cords. Most subjects are unable to complete the task and never utilize the pliers as a weight for a pendulum. The claim is that the subjects are functionally fixated on representing the pliers as a tool for forcefully grabbing an object, rather than as a weight for a pendulum to swing one cord toward the other, the preferred solution to the problem. They remain fixated on each tool as a tool for its gener- ally intended use rather than any other use, and are thus unable to solve the problem (Duncker, 1945). Other explanations for this type of fixation include an