About Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt Theory
 Sees the brain as a dynamic system in which elements interact
 The brain organizes our perceptions
 It does so by creating a kind of “map”
(isomorphism), which is a good --though not perfect-- guide to the outside world

Gestalt and Body-Mind
 The stimuli configurations
 Activate an existing brain isomorphism
 Which result in what we perceive
 Mind-perceptual organization, and sensory organ-stimulus exist in parallel
 This is DUALISM, and DOUBLE
ASPECTISM where there is a connection, but not an influence.

Some principles of perceptual organization
 Perceptual constancies (size, form, brightness)
 Proximity, continuity, similarity, closure, simplicity (good form), figure/ground
(Look at Wertheimer's original 1923 article for examples )

Proximity grouping (1)

Proximity Grouping (2)

Proximity grouping (3)

Bias in lines organization

Common fate

Read the content (1)

Read the content (2)

Read the content (3)
Images from http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/305_html/Gestalt/wertheimer2.html#

Impossible figures.
Why?

In summary
 In Gestalt, the mind is active
 It creates structures that parallel sensory reality, and serve as a guide
 The structure that emerges is
MORE than the sum of the parts.

Forerunners of Gestalt
Psychology
 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
 Franz Brentano
(1838-1917)
 Ernst Mach (1838-1916)
 Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932)
 William James
(1842-1910)
 Carl Stumf (1848-1936)

Immanuel Kant says… in the process of perceiving will

Perception is
 An ACTIVE construction of the elements of experience
 Not an automatic accumulation of these elements

Franz Brentano says
 Psychology ought to study

Ernst Mach noticed
 We perceive a table as a table, even as its orientation changes
 We recognize a melody in a different key

Christian von
Ehrenfels claimed
 The mind, operating on the sensory elements

William James said:
 Elements are artificial
 The mind perceives objects as
WHOLE

Carl Stumf
 And the phenomenologists want to use the whole of immediate experience as the basic data of study.

If the mind is active
 If the mind is active
 And our perception organizes and transforms "what is there"
 Can we really ever know "what is there"?

If we cannot know
"what is there"
 How do we approximate it?
 By "bracketing" (I.e. setting aside) the question of the existence of the object itself (because that cannot be solved)
 And using the method of "systematic variations" to get a wide sample of experience

More about phenomenology
 At http://www.husserlpage.com/
 Note: Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) is the official founder of the phenomenology movement as a philosophical movement.

Meanwhile in the natural sciences
 Interest in electromagnetic fields and other complex, global phenomena
 All part of a "more global" Zeitgeist.

The Main Players
 Max Wertheimer
(1880-1943)
 Kurt Koffka
(1886-1941)
 Wolfgang Köhler
(1887-1967)
 Kurt Lewin
(1890-1947) Field
Theory
 Kurt Goldstein
(1878-1965)

Max Wertheimer
(1880-1943)
 Official Gestalt founder
 Discovers the PHI phenomenon
 Started the journal Psychological
Research (w/ Koffka, Köhler, Goldstein and Gruhle)
 His best known book Productive
Thinking was published in 1945
Main

Kurt Koffka (1886-
1941)
 Wrote the first article about Gestalt psychology in the Psychological Bulletin
(1922)
 Published The Growth of the Mind
(1921)
 Published Principles of Gestalt
Psychology
Main

Wolfgang Köhler
(1887-1967)
 Known for his chimpanzee research, and especially the notion of insight learning in problem solving. He wrote The
Mentality of the Apes (1917)
 In 1929, published Gestalt Psychology
 1959 became APA President

Köhler (2)
 He was in Germany when Hitler came to power and was the ONLY non Jewish academic psychologist who opposed the
Nazi regime publicly and protested the
Main
dismissal of Jewish professors from academia. He left Germany in 1935.

Kurt Goldstein (1878-
1965)
 A neuropsychologist (and psychiatrist)
 Wrote a classic book: The Organism
 In this book, he studied brain injured patients and the manner in which the nervous system responded both in trauma and in reconstruction: globally rather than specifically

Field Theory: Kurt
Lewin (1890-1947)
 A person’s psychological activities occur within a life space field.
 Within the life space are all present, past, or future events that may affect us.
 Various elements have + or - valences, on the basis of which movements and/or conflicts occur
 Unfinished tasks create tension (Zeigarnik effect)

Group Dynamics
 Kurt Lewin originated the concept of
Group Dynamics.
 Famous study of leadership styles among groups of boys.
 The “Research Center for Group
Dynamics” which he started at MIT is still active today at the University of
Michigan.