Gestalt Psychology.pdf

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Gestalt Psycholog y

About the same time that the behaviorists were re-

belling against structuralism and functionalism in

the United States, a group of young German psy-

chologists was rebelling against Wundt’s experimen-

tal program that featured a search for the elements of

consciousness. Whereas the focus of the behaviorists’

attack was the study of consciousness and the associ-

ated method of introspection, the German protesters

focused their attack on Wundt’s elementism. Con-

sciousness, said the German rebels, could not be re-

duced to elements without distorting the true mean-

ing of the conscious experience. For them the

investigation of conscious experience through the

introspective method was an essential part of psy-

chology, but the type of conscious experience Wundt

and the U.S. structuralists investigated was artiﬁcial.

These young psychologists believed that we do not

experience things in isolated pieces but in meaning-

ful, intact conﬁgurations. We do not see patches of

green, blue, and red; we see people, cars, trees, and

clouds. These meaningful, intact, conscious experi-

ences are what the introspective method should con-

centrate on. Because the German word for “conﬁgu-

ration,” “form,” or “whole” is Gestalt, this new type

of psychology was called Gestalt psychology.

The Gestaltists were opposed to any type of ele-

mentism in psychology, whether it be the type

Wundt and the structuralists practiced or the type

the behaviorists practiced in their search for S–R as-

sociations. The attempt to reduce either conscious-

ness or behavior to the basic elements is called the

molecular approach to psychology, and psychologists

such as Wundt (as experimentalist), Titchener,

Pavlov, and Watson used such an approach. The

Gestaltists argued that a molar approach should be

taken. Taking the molar approach in studying con-

sciousness would mean concentrating on phenomeno-

logical experience (mental experience as it occurs to

the naive observer without further analysis). The

term phenomenon means “that which appears” or

“that which is given,” and so phenomenology, the

technique used by the Gestaltists, is the study of that

which naturally appears in consciousness. Taking the

molar, or phenomenological, approach while study-

ing behavior means concentrating on goal-directed

(purposive) behavior. We saw in the last chapter

that, under the inﬂuence of Gestalt psychology, Tol-

man chose to study this type of behavior. As we will

see, the Gestaltists attempted to show that in every

aspect of psychology, it is more beneﬁcial to concen-

trate on wholes ( Gestalten, plural of Gestalt ) than on

parts (atoms, elements). Those taking a molar ap-

proach to the study of behavior or psychological phe-

nomena are called holists, in contrast to the elemen-

tists or atomists, who study complex phenomena by

seeking simpler components that comprise those

phenomena. The Gestaltists were clearly holists.

Antecedents of Gestalt Psychology

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) believed that con-

scious experience is the result of the interaction be-

tween sensory stimulation and the actions of the fac-

ulties of the mind.In other words, the mind adds

something to our conscious experience that sensory

stimulation does not contain.If the phrase faculties

of the mind is replaced by characteristics of the brain,

there is considerable agreement between Kant and

402

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Gestalt Psychology 403

the Gestaltists.Both believed that conscious experi-

ence cannot be reduced to sensory stimulation, and

for both, conscious experience is different from the

elements that comprise it.Therefore, to look for a

one-to-one correspondence between sensory events

and conscious experience is doomed to failure.For

Kant and the Gestaltists, an important difference

exists between perception and sensation.This differ-

ence arose because our minds (Kant) or our brains

(the Gestaltists) change sensory experience, making

it more structured and organized and thus more

meaningful than it otherwise would be.Accordingly,

the world we perceive is never the same as the world

we sense.Because this embellishment of sensory in-

formation results from the nature of the mind

(Kant) or the brain (Gestaltists), it is independent

of experience.

ing” (pp. 246–247). Max Wertheimer, the founder of

Gestalt psychology, took several courses from Ehren-

fels between 1898 and 1901, and no doubt was inﬂu-

enced by him. Elaborating on Mach’s notions of

space and time forms, Ehrenfels said that our percep-

tions contain Gestaltqualitäten (form qualities) that

are not contained in isolated sensations. No matter

what pattern dots are arranged in, one recognizes the

pattern, not the individual dots. Similarly, one can-

not experience a melody by attending to individual

notes; only when one experiences several notes to-

gether does one experience the melody. For both

Mach and Ehrenfels, form is something that emerges

from the elements of sensation. Their position was

similar to the one John Stuart Mill had taken many

years earlier. With his idea of “mental chemistry,”

Mill had suggested that when sensations fuse a new

sensation totally unlike those of which it was com-

posed could emerge.

Like Mill, Mach and Ehrenfels believed that ele-

ments of sensation often combine and give rise to the

experience of form. However, for Mach, Ehrenfels,

and Mill, the elements are still necessary in deter-

mining the perception of the whole or the form. As

we will see, the Gestaltists turned this relationship

completely around by saying that the whole domi-

nates the parts, not the other way around.

Ernst Mach

Ernst Mach (1838–1916), a physicist, postulated

(1886/1914) two perceptions that appeared to be in-

dependent of the particular elements that composed

them: space form and time form. For example, one ex-

periences the form of a circle whether the actual cir-

cle presented is large, small, red, blue, bright, or dull.

The experience of “circleness” is therefore an exam-

ple of space form. The same would be true of any

geometric form. Similarly, a melody is recognizable as

the same no matter what key or tempo it is played in.

Thus a melody is an example of time form. Mach was

making the important point that a wide variety of

sensory elements can give rise to the same percep-

tion; therefore at least some perceptions are indepen-

dent of any particular cluster of sensory elements.

William James

Because of his distaste for elementism in psychology,

William James (1842–1910) can also be viewed as

a precursor to Gestalt psychology. He said that

Wundt’s search for the elements of consciousness de-

pended on an artiﬁcial and distorted view of mental

life. Instead of viewing the mind as consisting of iso-

lated mental elements, James proposed a stream of

consciousness. He believed that this stream should

be the object of psychological inquiry, and any at-

tempt to break it up for more detailed analysis must

be avoided. The Gestaltists agreed with James’s anti-

elementistic stand but thought that he had gone too

far. The mind, they believed, could indeed be di-

vided for study; it was just that in choosing the men-

tal element for their object of study, Wundt and

Christian von Ehrenfels

Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932) studied in Vi-

enna with Brentano, and in 1890 wrote a paper enti-

tled “Uber ‘Gestaltqualitäten ’” ( On Gestalt Qualities ).

About this paper Barry Smith (1994) says, “almost

all of the theoretical and conceptual issues which

subsequently came to be associated with the Gestalt

idea are treated at some point.... At least in pass-

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404 Chapter 14

the structuralists had made a bad choice. For the

Gestaltists, the correct choice was the study of men-

tal Gestalten.

comprise them. To further explore this notion,

Wertheimer got off the train at Frankfurt, bought a

toy stroboscope (a device that allows still pictures to

be ﬂashed in such a way that makes them appear to

move), and began to experiment in a hotel room.

Clearly, Wertheimer was perceiving motion where

none actually existed. To examine this phenomenon

in more detail, he went to the University of Frank-

furt, where a tachistoscope was made available to

him. (A tachistoscope can ﬂash lights on and off for

measured fractions of a second.) Flashing two lights

successively, Wertheimer found that if the time be-

tween the ﬂashes was long (200 milliseconds or

longer), the observer perceived two lights ﬂashing on

and off successively—which was, in fact, the case.

If the interval between ﬂashes was very short (30

milliseconds or less), both lights appeared to be on

simultaneously. But if the interval between the

ﬂashes was about 60 milliseconds, it appeared that

one light was moving from one position to the other.

Wertheimer called this apparent movement the phi

phenomenon, and his 1912 article “Experimental

Studies of the Perception of Movement” describing

this phenomenon is usually taken as the formal be-

ginning of the school of Gestalt psychology.

Wertheimer’s research assistants at the Univer-

sity of Frankfurt were two recent Berlin doctoral

graduates: Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler, both of

whom acted as Wertheimer’s subjects in his percep-

tion experiments. So closely are Koffka and Köhler

linked with the development of Gestalt psychology

that they, along with Wertheimer, are usually consid-

ered cofounders of the school.

Act Psychology

We saw in chapter 9 that Franz Brentano and Carl

Stumpf favored the type of introspection that focuses

on the acts of perceiving, sensing, or problem solv-

ing. They were against using introspection to search

for mental elements, and they directed their more

liberal brand of introspection toward mental phe-

nomena. Thus, both the “act” psychologists and the

Gestaltists were phenomenologists. It should come as

no surprise that act psychology inﬂuenced Gestalt

psychology because all three founders of Gestalt psy-

chology (Wertheimer, Koffka, and Köhler), at one

time or another, studied under Carl Stumpf. Köhler

even dedicated one of his books to Stumpf (1920).

Developments in Physics

Because properties of magnetic ﬁelds were difﬁcult to

understand in terms of the mechanistic-elementistic

view of Galilean-Newtonian physics, some physicists

turned to a study of force ﬁelds, in which all events

were interrelated. (Anything that happens in a force

ﬁeld in some way inﬂuences everything else in the

ﬁeld.) Köhler was well versed in physics and had

even studied for a while with Max Planck, the cre-

ator of quantum mechanics. In fact, it is accurate to

say that Gestalt psychology represented an effort to

model psychology after ﬁeld theory instead of New-

tonian physics. We will say more about this effort

shortly.

Max Wertheimer

Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) was born on April 15

in Prague and attended a Gymnasium (roughly equiv-

alent to a high school) until he was 18, at which

time he went to the University of Prague to study

law. While Wertheimer was attending the University

of Prague, his interest shifted from law to philosophy,

and during this time he attended lectures by Ehren-

fels. After spending some time at the University of

Berlin (1901–1903), where he attended Stumpf’s

The Founding of Gestalt Psychology

In 1910 Max Wertheimer was on a train, on his way

from Vienna to a vacation on the Rhineland, when

he had an idea that was to launch Gestalt psychol-

ogy. The idea was that our perceptions are structured

in ways that sensory stimulation is not. That is, our

perceptions are different from the sensations that

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Gestalt Psychology 405

Max Wertheimer

who was 53 years old at the time, decided to pursue

his career elsewhere. Positions were offered to him at

Cambridge University, Oxford University, and the

University of Jerusalem; but in 1933 he accepted a

position at the New School for Social Research, and

he and his wife Anne, and their three children

(Valentin, Michael, and Lise) sailed for New York.

Wertheimer knew only German, and his ﬁrst classes

were taught in that language. After only ﬁve

months, however, he began teaching and publishing

in English. His second language posed a problem

for Wertheimer because it sometimes interfered

with his desire to express himself precisely. Michael

Wertheimer and King (1994) give an example:

“He ...had some problems with mathematical

terms; his students were occasionally bafﬂed before

they realized that his references to obtuse and acute

‘angels’ had nothing to do with heavenly beings but

with trigonometric angles” (pp. 5–6).

Wertheimer had wide interests and, after arriving

in the United States, wrote (in English) articles on

truth (1934), ethics (1935), democracy (1937), and

freedom (1940). Wertheimer intended to publish

these articles as a collection, and Albert Einstein

wrote a forward. Although the collection was never

published in English, it was eventually published in

German under the editorship of Hans-Jürgen Walter

(1991). Wertheimer wrote only one book, Productive

Thinking, but he died suddenly on October 12, 1943,

of a coronary embolism in his home in New

Rochelle, New York, before it was published. Produc-

tive Thinking was published posthumously in 1945. In

October 1988 the German Society for Psychology

bestowed upon Wertheimer its highest honor, the

Wilhelm Wundt Plaque.

classes, Wertheimer moved to the University of

Würzburg, where in 1904 he received his doctorate,

summa cum laude, under Külpe’s supervision. His

dissertation was on lie detection. Being at Würzburg

at the time when Külpe and others were locked in

debate with Wundt over the existence of “imageless

thought” and over what introspection should focus

on no doubt affected Wertheimer’s thinking.

Between 1904 and 1910, Wertheimer held aca-

demic positions at the Universities of Prague, Vi-

enna, and Berlin. He was at the University of Frank-

furt from 1910 to 1916, the University of Berlin from

1916 to 1929, and again at the University of Frank-

furt from 1929 to 1933. Because of the chaos caused

by the Nazi movement in Germany, Wertheimer,

Kurt Koffka

Born on March 18 in Berlin, Kurt Koffka (1886–

1941) received his doctorate from the University

of Berlin in 1908, under the supervision of Carl

Stumpf. Koffka served as an assistant at Würzburg

and at Frankfurt before accepting a position at the

University of Giessen in central Germany, where

he remained until 1924. During his stay at the

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406 Chapter 14

Growth of the Mind: An Introduction to Child Psychol-

ogy (1924). In 1935, Koffka published Principles of

Gestalt Psychology, which was intended to be a com-

plete, systematic presentation of Gestalt theory. The

latter book was dedicated to Köhler and Wertheimer

in gratitude for their friendship and inspiration.

Kurt Koffka

Wolfgang Köhler

Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) was born on January

21 in Reval, Estonia, and received his doctorate in

1909 from the University of Berlin. Like Koffka,

Köhler worked under the supervision of Stumpf. In

1909, Köhler went to the University of Frankfurt,

where a year later he would participate with

Wertheimer and Koffka in the research that was to

launch the Gestalt movement. Köhler’s collabora-

tion with Koffka and Wertheimer was temporarily

interrupted when, in 1913, the Prussian Academy of

Sciences invited him to go to its anthropoid station

on Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, to study

chimpanzees. Shortly after his arrival World War I

began, and his stay on Tenerife was prolonged for

seven years. While at the anthropoid station, Köhler

concentrated his study on the nature of learning in

chimpanzees. He summarized his observations in the

Mentality of Apes (1917/1925).

Psychologist Ronald Ley (1990) suggests that

Köhler did more than observe chimpanzees on

Tenerife.In the ﬁrst place, the Canary Islands are an

unlikely place to establish an anthropoid research

station because chimpanzees are not native to the re-

gion.The German Cameroons in Africa or a large

zoo in Germany would have been more logical loca-

tions.Ley speculates that Köhler’s reason for being in

such a remote place was to observe British shipping

activity for the German military.With a carefully

concealed radio, Köhler informed German military

ofﬁcials whether British vessels were in the vicinity.

If they were not, German ships could safely be refu-

eled by nearby fuel ships.These activities were con-

ﬁrmed by Manuel, the 87-year-old keeper, handler,

and trainer of Köhler’s animals, and by two of Köh-

ler’s children.Ley also provides documents from

both German and British naval archives that con-

University of Frankfurt, Koffka began his long asso-

ciation with Wertheimer and Köhler. In 1924 he

came to the United States, and after holding visiting

professorships at Cornell and the University of Wis-

consin he accepted a position at Smith College in

Northampton, Massachusetts, where he remained

until his death.

In 1922 Koffka wrote an article, in English, on

Gestalt psychology. Published in the Psychological

Bulletin, the article was entitled “Perception: An In-

troduction to Gestalt-Theorie.” This article is be-

lieved to have been responsible for most U.S. psy-

chologists erroneously assuming that the Gestaltists

were interested only in perception. The truth was

that, besides perception, the Gestaltists were inter-

ested in many philosophical issues as well as in learn-

ing and thinking. The reason for their early concen-

tration on perception was that Wundt had been

concentrating on perception, and he was the primary

focus of their attack.

In 1921 Koffka published an important book on

child psychology, later translated into English as The

Wadsworth Publishing Co.

Hergenhahn: Introduction to the History of Psychology, 4/e

CHAPTER 14 / BOOK PAGE 406

SECOND PROOF

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