Gestalt psychology
Problem solving and insight

Gestalt psychology contributed to the scientific study of problem solving. In fact, the early experimental work of the Gestaltists in Germany marks the beginning of the scientific study of problem solving. Later this experimental work continued through the 1960s and early 1970s with research conducted on relatively simple laboratory tasks of problem solving.

Max Wertheimer distinguished two kinds of thinking: productive thinking and reproductive thinking. Productive thinking is solving a problem based on insight—a quick, creative, unplanned response to situations and environmental interaction. Reproductive thinking is solving a problem deliberately based on previous experience and knowledge. Reproductive thinking proceeds algorithmically —a problem solver reproduces a series of steps from memory, knowing that they will lead to a solution—or by trial and error.

Karl Duncker, another Gestalt psychologist who studied problem solving, coined the term functional fixedness for describing the difficulties in both visual perception and problem solving that arise from the fact that one element of a whole situation already has a (fixed) function that has to be changed in order to perceive something or find the solution to a problem.
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