(c)

(c)2016
2016Wadsworth,
Wadsworth,Cengage LearningLearning
Cengage
 Topics
1. A Sudden Insight
2. The Gestalt Revolt
3. Antecedent Influences on Gestalt Psychology
4. The Changing Zeitgeist in Physics
5. The Phi Phenomenon: A Challenge to Wundtian
Psychology
6. Max Wertheimer (1880-1943)

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 Topics (cont’d.)
7. Kurt Koffka (1886-1941)
8. Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967)
9. The Nature of the Gestalt Revolt
10.Gestalt Principles of Perceptual Organization
11.Gestalt Studies of Learning: Insight and the
Mentality of Apes
12.Productive Thinking in Humans

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 Topics (cont’d.)
13.Isomorphism
14.The Spread of Gestalt Psychology
15.Field Theory: Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)
16.Criticisms of Gestalt Psychology
17.Contributions of Gestalt Psychology
18.Selected Discussion Questions

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 A SUDDEN INSIGHT

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 A Sudden Insight
• Wolfgang Köhler studied apes on Tenerife
• Goal: observe how the animal solve problems
– Put his apes in large cages
– Gave them implements that they could use to obtain
the food that was placed in plain view
– Sat back to watch what they did
• Apes used the tools to get the food
• Movements were goal-oriented, purposeful, and
deliberate
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 THE GESTALT REVOLT

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 The Gestalt Revolt
• At the same time as behaviorism was flourishing
in the U.S., Gestalt psychology was gaining
popularity in Germany
• Gestalt psychologists accepted the value of
consciousness while criticizing the attempt to
reduce it to atoms or elements
• Gestalt psychologists maintained that when
sensory elements are combined, the elements
form a new pattern or configuration
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 ANTECEDENT INFLUENCES
ON GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

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 Antecedent Influences on Gestalt
Psychology
• Kant: perceived mental states that appear to be
composed of bits actively form a coherent
experience
• Mach: argued that our perception of an object
does not change, even if we change our
orientation to it
• Phenomenology: a doctrine based on an
unbiased description of immediate experience
just as it occurs
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 THE CHANGING ZEITGIEST
IN PHYSICS

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 The Changing Zeitgeist in Physics
• Physicists were describing fields and organic
wholes
• Fields of force: regions or spaces traversed by
lines of force, such as of a magnet or electric
current
• Atomism or elementism is influential in the
establishment of psychology
• Results in Gestalt psychologists’ revolutionary
ways of looking at perception

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 THE PHI PHENOMENON:
A CHALLENGE TO
WUNDTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

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 The Phi Phenomenon: A Challenge
to Wundtian Psychology
• Max Wertheimer: conducts an experiment about
seeing motion when no actual motion exists
– Referred to it as the “impression” of movement
– Called into question Wundt’s position: all conscious
experience could be analyzed or broken down into its
sensory elements
• Phi phenomenon: the illusion that two stationary
flashing lights are moving from one place to
another

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 MAX WERTHEIMER
(1880–1943)

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 Max Wertheimer (1880–1943)
• University of Berlin (1920’s): Wertheimer
carried out some of his most productive work
for the development of Gestalt psychology
• 1921: founded the journal Psychological
Research
• Became associated with the New School for
Social Research in New York City
• Influenced Maslow

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 Max Wertheimer with apparatus for visual imagery experiments.
Archives of the History of American Psychology/University of Akron

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 KURT KOFFKA (1886–
1941)

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 Kurt Koffka (1886–1941)
• Associated with Wertheimer and Köhler at the
University of Frankfurt
• Introduced the word perception, which later
became strongly associated with the Gestalt
school of thought
– Gestalt psychology was more broadly concerned
with cognitive processes, with problems of
thinking, learning, and other aspects of conscious
experience

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 WOLFGANG KÖHLER
(1887–1967)

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 Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967)
• Most prolific promoter of the Gestalt
movement
• Books became the standard works of Gestalt
psychology
• Suggested that Gestalt theory was a general
law of nature that should be extended to all the
sciences
– Spent seven years studying the behavior of
chimpanzees

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 THE NATURE OF THE
GESTALT REVOLT

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 The Nature of the Gestalt Revolt
• Gestalt leaders demanded a complete revision of
the old order
• Perceptual constancy: a quality of wholeness in
perceptual experience that does not vary even
when the sensory elements change
– Brightness, size, angle all remain constant even when
the stimulus itself changes
• Perception is a whole, a Gestalt, and any attempt
to analyze/reduce it to elements will destroy it

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 GESTALT PRINCIPLES OF
PERCEPTUAL
ORGANIZATION

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 Gestalt Principles of Perceptual
Organization
• Gestalt principles: rules by which we organize
our perceptual world
– Premise: perceptual organization occurs instantly,
and is spontaneous and inevitable
– The brain is a dynamic system in which all
elements active at a given time interact
– The elements that are similar or close together
tend to combine, and elements that are dissimilar
or farther apart tend not to combine

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 Gestalt Principles of Perceptual
Organization (cont’d.)
• Gestalt principles:
– Proximity
– Continuity
– Similarity
– Closure
– Simplicity
– Figure/ground
• Focus more on peripheral factors of perceptual
organization than the effects of learning or experience

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(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning
 GESTALT STUDIES OF
LEARNING:
INSIGHT AND THE
MENTALITY OF APES

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 Gestalt Studies of Learning: Insight
and the Mentality of Apes
• Köhler’s research with chimps:
– He interpreted the results of his animal research
in terms of the whole situation and the
relationships among the stimuli
– Problem solving is a matter of restructuring the
perceptual field
• One study shows that animals cannot clearly envision
the whole problem
• Another study shows a restructuring of the perceptual
field was necessary for the chimp to solve the problem

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 A chimpanzee uses sticks of different lengths to reach a piece of fruit.
Yerkes Primate Research Center

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 PRODUCTIVE THINKING IN
HUMANS

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 Productive Thinking in Humans
• Wertheimer: applied Gestalt principles of learning
to creative thinking in humans
– Thinking is done in terms of wholes
– Found evidence to support the idea that the whole
problem must dominate the parts
– Organization of problems into meaningful wholes lead
to students’ insightful grasp of problems and solutions
– Challenged traditional educational practices, such as
mechanical drill and rote learning

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 ISOMORPHISM

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 Isomorphism
• Gestalt psychologists shifted their focus to the
brain mechanisms involved in perception
– The cerebral cortex was depicted as a dynamic system
– Wertheimer suggested that brain activity is a
configural, whole process
• Isomorphism: the doctrine that there is a
correspondence between psychological or
conscious experience and the underlying brain
experience

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 THE SPREAD OF GESTALT
PSYCHOLOGY

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 The Spread of Gestalt Psychology
• Mid-1920s: Gestalt movement was a coherent,
dominant, and forceful school of thought in Germany
• 1930’s: the core of Gestalt psychology shifted to the
United States
• Difficulty in advancement:
– Behaviorism on the rise in the U.S.
– Language barrier
– Psychologists believed Gestalt psychology dealt only with
perception

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 The Battle with Behaviorism
• Gestalt psychologists argued with
behaviorism:
– Like Wundt’s psychology, behaviorism also dealt
with artificial abstractions
– Disputed behaviorists’ denial of the validity of
introspection
– Disputed behaviorists’ discarding of any
recognition of consciousness

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 FIELD THEORY: KURT
LEWIN
(1890–1947)

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 Field Theory:
Kurt Lewin (1890–1947)
• Lewin’s contribution to psychology:
– Field theory: Lewin’s system using the concept of
fields of force to explain behavior in terms of one’s
field of social influences
– Life space: varying degrees of development as a
function of the amount and kind of experience we
have accumulated
– Zeigarnik effect: tendency to recall uncompleted tasks
more easily than completed tasks
– Social psychology: individual and group dynamics

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 CRITICISMS OF GESTALT
PSYCHOLOGY

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 Criticisms of Gestalt Psychology
• The organization of perceptual processes, as in
the phi phenomenon, was not approached as a
scientific problem to be investigated
• The Gestalt position was vague; basic concepts
were not defined with sufficient rigor to be
scientifically meaningful
• Köhler’s notion of insight has been questioned
• Psychologists considered Gestalt psychologists to
be using poorly defined assumptions

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 CONTRIBUTIONS OF
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

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 Contributions of Gestalt
Psychology
• Influenced work on perception, learning,
thinking, personality, social psychology, and
motivation
• Was able to retain a separate identity
• Focus on the conscious experience during the
years when behaviorism was dominant
• Provided a phenomenological approach to
psychology

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 SELECTED DISCUSSION
QUESTIONS

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning

 Selected Discussion Questions
• Explain the differences between the Gestalt
and behaviorist revolts against Wundtian
psychology.
• How did the Zeitgeist in physics change toward
the end of the nineteenth century? How did
that change influence Gestalt psychology?
• In what ways did Gestalt psychology affect
psychology as a whole?

(c) 2016 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning