Had a little "aha" moment just now as I was doing some cognition homework. We're reading about problem-solving, and I came across the concept of "functional fixedness," which often gets in people's way as they are trying to come up with solutions. It means an inability to see a variety of uses for an object. The best way I can think to explain it is in negatives, examples where people overcame their limited understanding of how an object can be used: that scene in Apollo 13 where they jerry-rig an air filter using a sock; the hairdresser who suggested cleaning up the Valdez oil slick with bags of cut hair; Watts Towers; etc.

It is functional fixedness which makes a number of text-based video games initially hard to play. Text-based games frequently require you to use objects in highly unorthodox ways; I think it could be said to be a major source of their challenge and entertainment value (entertaining provided you have a high tolerance for frustration, that is). Take Thy Dungeonman, for example. Early on in the game you pick up a chunk of moldy bread. Most people in well-fed communities don't eat moldy bread. Most people also don't eat unless they are hungry, and your character never expresses any hunger. So the moldy bread seems functionally useless, and it seems weird that you decide to pick it up and put it in your loincloth, where you're going to forget it unless you religiously check your inventory as you progress.

But this functional fixedness could keep you from winning the game. At one point you are going to be bitten by a rat carrying the bubonic plague -- you just can't avoid it; you can't get out of the dungeon otherwise. And if you don't overcome your usual ideas of what moldy bread does, you will eventually die of the plague. There are, of course, cues to suggest an item is useful -- the fact that the game does not allow you to not take the bread, or to put it down, but they don't necessarily point to where you're going to need to use the object. There are at least three other objects in the game -- a mop, a lollipop, and your loincloth -- whose apparent functional fixedness could also lose you the game.

Having read James Gee's book on literacies and video games, which does very little to address how video games make better learners outside of the gaming sphere, I've been struggling to identify broad skills which gamers develop that other people don't. I think overcoming functional fixedness is a very good candidate.

Text-based games definitely ask you to do more on this level than many games do these days. I think a lot of contemporary RPGs really dumb down and limit the amount of problem-solving you need to do at this level. Yes, it is a key, it's going to go in a lock. Sadly, the designers won't let you use it to choke the slavering beast who is now rushing at you with jaws wide; on him, you're going to have to use your thermonuclear gun-katana instead.

And actually, text-based games often sucked because of the amount of functional fixedness they asked you to overcome. For crying out loud, how was I supposed to know that if I didn't get the bag of peanuts, I was going to lose the Hitchhiker's Guide game when Arthur boarded the Vogon ship? The learning curve was pretty steep; the number of turns you had to solve the problem in was frequently too small for a beginning player.

BUT: if you played enough text-based games, there was no way you were going to approach a new problem and NOT think of overcoming functional fixedness. It was your first line of defense.

Whether and how this transfers to the real world remains to be seen; also, how this transfer can be encouraged. I think both the fixedness transcendance and the transfer would be worth researching.