Stimulus die
Inject a random prompt to break fixation and force a new angle.
Variants
- Cut, fold and tape a die — needs scissors, tape
- Roll any die against a printed table
Data fields
The fields a spec's page can set for this component (see switchback show stimulus-die --json):
faces
Grounding
Helps: when the same few ideas keep recurring during a divergent phase; heuristic prompts reduced fixation in one design study, and rolling operators at random is otherwise untested
Backfires: when the face rolled does not fit the problem, when the prompt itself becomes the fixation, and during convergence or evaluation, where random input is noise
- DExposure to randomly selected stimuli (words or prompts unrelated to the problem) during idea generation increases the number and originality of ideas, compared with generating without stimuli.Dugosh et al. (2000), Vasconcelos & Crilly (2016), Leahy et al. (2020), Jansson & Smith (1991)
- CPrompting idea generation with generic transformation heuristics ("reverse it", "make it 10×", "borrow from another field") increases the variety and creativity of generated concepts, compared with unprompted generation.Yilmaz et al. (2016), Leahy et al. (2020)
- CImpasses in problem solving are overcome when the solver relaxes a self-imposed constraint on the solution, so deliberately removing a constraint makes new solution paths available.Knoblich et al. (1999), Knoblich, Ohlsson & Raney (2001), Moreau & Dahl (2005), Acar, Tarakci & van Knippenberg (2019)