There is More to Perception than Meets the Eye About Gestalt Psychology
Dec 21, 2015
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 configurationsActivate an existing brain isomorphismWhich result in what we perceiveMind-perceptual organization, and
sensory organ-stimulus exist in parallelThis is DUALISM, and DOUBLE
ASPECTISM where there is a connection, but not an influence.
Some principles of perceptual
organizationPerceptual constancies (size, form,
brightness)Proximity, continuity, similarity,
closure, simplicity (good form), figure/ground
(Look at Wertheimer's original 1923 article for examples)
Read the content (3)
Images from http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cfs/305_html/Gestalt/wertheimer2.html#
In summary
In Gestalt, the mind is activeIt 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)
Perception is
An ACTIVE construction of the elements of experience
Not an automatic accumulation of these elements
Ernst Mach noticed
We perceive a table as a table, even as its orientation changes
We recognize a melody in a different key
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 activeAnd 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
TheoryKurt Goldstein (1878-1965)
Max Wertheimer (1880-1943)
Official Gestalt founderDiscovers the PHI phenomenonStarted 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 Psychology1959 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 dismissal of Jewish professors from academia. He left Germany in 1935.
Main
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.