Here\u2019s how GPT works: \u201cFor each object in your problem, you break it into parts and ask two questions,\u201d explains McCaffrey, who is now a post-doctoral fellow in UMass\u2019s engineering department. \u201c1. Can it be broken down further?<\/em> and 2. \u2014 this is the one that\u2019s been overlooked \u2014 Does my description of the part imply a use?\u201d<\/em> So you\u2019re given two steel rings and told to make a figure-8 out of them. Your tools? A candle and a match. Melted wax is sticky, but the wax isn\u2019t strong enough to hold the rings together. What about the other part of the candle? The wick. The word implies a use: Wicks are set afire to give light. \u201cThat tends to hinder people\u2019s ability to think of alternative uses for this part,\u201d says McCaffrey. Think of the wick more generically as a piece of string and the string as strands of cotton and you\u2019re liberated. Now you can remove the wick and tie the two rings together. Or, if you like, shred the string and make a wig for your hamster.<\/p>\n McCaffrey has drawn his insights by analyzing 1,001 historically innovative inventions. In every one, he found, the innovator discovered an obscure feature or an obscure function. McCaffrey cites a recent invention to solve a modern problem. \u201cIn this very poor section of the Philippines, people living in shanties were using electric lights inside while it was sunny outside,\u201d he says. How to save money on electricity? \u201cTake a 2-liter Coke bottle, stick it through a hole in the roof, fill it with water. The water reflects the light around the inside the house.\u201d A simple idea, using an overlooked feature of water: \u201cIt refracts light 360 degrees.\u201d<\/p>\n GPT is one of a \u201cpalette\u201d of techniques McCaffrey is developing into what he calls \u201cinnovation assistance software,\u201d which itself can be put to novel uses. His undergraduate student, a comedy writer, is applying the technique to build obscure situations that can make people laugh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Association for Psychological Science press release: Stuck solving a problem? Seek the obscure, says Tony McCaffrey, a psychology PhD from the University of Massachusetts. \u201cThere\u2019s a classic obstacle… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[77,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1752,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1751\/revisions\/1752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/Furniture.jpg\" "\\"object")
Stuck solving a problem? Seek the obscure<\/strong>, says Tony McCaffrey, a psychology PhD from the University of Massachusetts. \u201cThere\u2019s a classic obstacle to innovation called \u2018functional fixedness,\u2019 which is the tendency to fixate on the common use of an object or its parts<\/strong>. It hinders people from solving problems.\u201d McCaffrey has developed a systematic way of overcoming that obstacle: the \u201cgeneric parts technique\u201d (GPT),<\/strong> which he describes in the latest issue of Psychological Science<\/em>, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. The article also reports on McCaffrey\u2019s test of GPT\u2019s effectiveness. Its results: People trained in GPT solved eight problems 67 percent more often than those who weren\u2019t trained, and the first group solved them more than 8 times out of 10.<\/p>\n