Now that we've examined the constancy block in some detail, I personally feel that that is probably the most significant block that you'll encounter in your approaches to solving problems creatively. But let's now examine the other three types of conceptual blocks, beginning with a commitment block. Here, we can be trapped into perceptually stereotyping a problem. And that is being attached to our past experiences to define the current problem. Or we could be trapped into ignoring some of the commonalities that exist between problems. My own experience as a researcher suggests that those who could identify commonalities between different problems oftentimes were the most successful in coming up with creative solutions. As we look at compression blocks, here, we can oftentimes trap ourselves into assuming constraints on a problem that don't really exist. Or we could be guilty of not distinguishing the figure from the ground. This is a term that draws from the field of photography, where depth of field can be narrowed to highlight the figure and distinguish it from the background. Here's an example of a compression type of problem. Many of us are familiar with this example because it's been around for many, many years. The challenge here is to connect all nine dots with four lines. Frequently, when a person first encounters this problem, he will approach it by staying within the box. However, if we remove that constraint, we can in fact draw four straight lines through all nine dots. Albeit, having to draw outside the box. Since most of us have seen that one, I would like to up the challenge a little bit. Can you draw using only three lines to connect all nine dots? Again, you're going to have to overcome the compression block, overcome your assumptions to come up with a solution that might look like this. And while this one is interesting, I challenge you again. Can you connect all nine dots with a single line? If you remove the constraint about the width of the line, then you might come up with a solution that looks a bit like that. Let's move on now to the complacency blocks. I mentioned earlier in this lesson that complacency is in effect becoming a little bit lazy. It can be lazy in two ways, one is just not asking the questions that need to be asked. Not having someone in the group who's willing to be what we would call the devil's advocate, or be willing to challenge the status quo. I found that in most creative groups, they work most effectively when there's at least one person in a group willing to challenge the ideas that are presented. The other one is just a bias against thinking. It's being a little bit mentally lazy. Are you willing to do the work that it takes to be creative? It's a chaotic process, and for many of us who are engineers, it's a little bit uncomfortable.