Mindlessness exists in a well learned activity or behaviour (as opposed to directed towards an object) Langer additionally provides a framing that may be applied to unfamiliarised encounters of objects and tasks. Langer proposes that there are instances whereby an individual may encounter “something” and form a “particular mindset”, enacting a Mindless disposition whereby the meaning or use becomes fixed upon the initial understanding. When reencountering the “something” the initial mindset or understanding is reapplied prior to reflection upon potential contextual meanings or uses, the user / agent enacts a Premature Cognitive Commitment. This is explained by Langer as:
“When we accept an impression or a piece of information at face value, with no reason to think critically about it, perhaps because it seems irrelevant, that impression settles unobtrusively into our minds until a similar signal from the outside world - such as a sight or smell or sound - calls it up again. At that next time it may no longer be irrelevant, but most of us don’t reconsider what we mindlessly accepted earlier. Such mindsets, especially those formed in childhood, are premature because we cannot know in advance the possible future uses a piece of information may serve. The mindless individual is committed to one predetermined use of the information, and other possible uses or applications are not explored.” (p22, Langer, 1989)
Such a positioning parallels that of Dewey in that a stimulus may invoke a sequential behaviour that is routed in a habitual reaction / action. A person performing Mindlessly will perform this reaction / action without reflection and will therefore fail to see or explore the potentials for creative growth; akin to the previously highlighted position of Dewey:
"…humans often attempt to recover equilibrium in ways that do not promote growth. Faced with a breakdown, they often retreat to more primitive levels of behavioral response rather than moving forward onto behavioral plateaus that are more richly meaningful."
(p32, Koschmann, Kuutti, and Hickman, 1998)
Furthermore and noted by Langer and Chanowitz (p1051,1981) "…the context in
which one is introduced to environmental cues for behaviour affects the ability of the individual to use those cues on a subsequent occasion."; and so a premature cognitive commitment exists as an assumption toward a context or situation based upon initial understandings. And so, when in a Mindless state an agent may resort to a premature cognitive commitment (a primitive unreflective habitual response) that is exhibited without contemplation or reflection, i.e. as ready-to-hand. The pervasive
"[…] much [of] complex social interaction is accomplished mindlessly, without an awareness of the relevant details that would seem necessary in order to accomplish that interaction successfully. […] This perspective stands in marked contrast to other views of humans as interacting almost exclusively on the basis of active, ongoing processing of incoming information made available by the environment. […] as the individual's experience with certain situations accumulates, a structure of the situation and a sequence of behavior are formed […]. On subsequent occasions, the individual will regularly encounter elements in the environment that resemble the structure typical of the earlier situations. The individual then responds to these elements as cues for maintaining the typical sequence of behavior. The theory of mindlessness further maintains that when in this "mindless" state, the individual is no longer engaged in actively constructing his or her environment; instead, the individual responds to an already constructed environment."
(p1051 - 1052, Langer and Chanowitz, 1981)
Thus, a premature cognitive commitment exists in opposition to how we may view much of our "lived" life i.e. as experienced and intentional in reaction to ongoing environmental or situational information. Instead premature cognitive commitments indicate that a large proportion of our activities (and interactions) are routed in our previous exposure to similar experiences and environments without contextualisation and exploration to new modalities of understanding. This additionally supports the positioning of Dewey that a breakdown, one that forces a contemplation, facilitates creative adaptations (as opportunity to “grow”) to otherwise habitual actions.
While Langer frames premature cognitive commitments as behaviour toward environmental cues, the position may be additionally framed through Functional Fixedness. Functional fixedness (Anderson, 1962) is understood as an inhibition to problem solving through the use of "solution objects", whereby the previous use or framing / presentation of the solution object limits the "visibility" of a novel use required for the solution toward a problem (This is discussed at greater length in chapter 1.12 on Automaticity). One such example of functional fixedness can be found in Anderson’s findings of Dunker's "Box" problem (Anderson, 1952). The box problem (Dunker, 1945; Anderson, 1952) consists of a study whereby the test subject (participant) is instructed to mount three candles vertically to a screen so that they do not drip wax below. Objects are provided to achieve this within three "pasteboard" (cardboard) boxes of differing sizes containing the candles, some tacks / drawing pins, and a matchbox. The solution to the problem requires emptying the contents of the boxes, melting some wax to the inside of a box and
bonding the candle to this; then fixing the box (and candle) to the vertical surface via the tacks. Functional fixedness here prohibits the immediate visibility of the solution as the boxes are not viewed as a component of use but as a storage of the objects. An additional example of functional fixedness may also be found through the Two Rings Problem (McCaffrey, 2012). The Two Rings problem requires a participant to fasten together two weighty steel rings in a figure-eight. The participant is provided with a long candle, a match, and a two-inch steel cube. The immediate functional fixedness driven answer would be to melt the wax over the two steel rings to form a bond, however this is not strong enough to hold the rings together. The solution requires a deconstruction of the objects provided to the constitutional parts. The candle is the source of the solution, however, it requires the use of the steel cube to remove the wax and reveal the wick, a piece of string. When this becomes apparent the solution is clear, the string wick may be used to tie the rings together.
Here the example of functional fixedness further promotes the understandings of breakdown as proposed by Dewey, Heidegger and Langer through a broader framing. Rather than applying, the habitual knowing (as described by Dewey), a primacy of action (as Heidegger's ready-to-hand), or a Mindless / premature cognitive commitment (as described by Langer (1989), and Langer and Chanowitz (2000)); a novel abstract contextualisation is required. The habitual and routinised behaviour (as described by Leont'ev and Dewey (Koschmann, Kuutti, and Hickman (1998)) must be overcome, the ready-to-hand primacy of knowing must be prevented and drawn toward contemplative present-at-hand (as described by Heidegger Koschmann, Kuutti, and Hickman (1998)), and the premature cognitive commitment must be blocked and an orientation towards openness of novelty of information and objects fostered (as described by Langer, 1989). Thus, in overcoming functional fixedness and premature cognitive commitment a breakdown must be facilitated to encourage the person to engage with actively constructing his or her environment, i.e. a Mindful action.