Schedule of Events | Symposia

Do Learning Preferences Predict Fixation to Pictorial Examples in Design Problem Solving?

Poster Session B - Sunday, March 30, 2025, 8:00 – 10:00 am EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Leah Downie¹ (ld922@drexel.edu), Dong Ho Kim², Alexandra E. Kelly¹, John Gero³, Evangelia G. Chrysikou¹; ¹Drexel University, ²Northwestern University, ³University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Using pictures as examples during problem solving can lead to fixation, wherein solvers tend to replicate the solutions included in the examples even when they involve errors or are clearly suboptimal. Despite the significance of this finding for many educational and professional contexts where creative solutions are critical, very little research has examined the neurocognitive bases of this phenomenon. In this study, we hypothesized that individual differences in learning tendencies may contribute to the likelihood of a participant experiencing fixation during design problem solving. Specifically, we predicted that exemplar learners—individuals who tend to approach learning tasks by memorizing specific examples—may be more prone to fixation, relative to abstraction learners—individuals who tend to approach learning tasks by extracting general principles or rules and applying them to different situations. To examine this prediction, we administered healthy young adults learning tasks that classified them as either exemplar or abstraction learners, and design problem solving tasks that either included a pictorial example or did not include an example. We evaluated participant solutions for evidence of fixation and creative problem solving, per established procedures. Participants’ perceptual, executive function, and creative abilities were also assessed. Analyses by learner and task type offered preliminary support for our predictions, showing that exemplar learners are more susceptible to design fixation than abstraction learners, with individual differences in perceptual and executive function abilities partially accounting for the observed effects. We discuss the implications of these findings for creative problem solving, as well as education more broadly.

Topic Area: THINKING: Problem solving