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HS-09-GestaltPsychologyweek8.pptxContemporary Issues: Historical Framework of Contemporary Psychology
Unit 9
Gestalt Psychology
Psychology So Far
Germany: Structuralism: Wundt, Titchner (US)
USA: Functionalism/Behaviorism
Protest against data of consciousness as part of Psych
Similar to Galileo removing mind from matter (physics)
Gestalt: another, different protest in Germany:
Against analysis of experience into elements
Today we would say against reductive materialism
Against exclusion of value/meaning
‘The Whole Is Other Than The Sum Of Its Parts’
Gestalten Properties
The whole is other than the sum of its parts
Kurt Koffka
Mind experience wholes whose significance transcends its parts.
not simply more but unique entities
Wholes had a unique, independent existence
Properties of whole are (emergent)
don’t exist in individual parts
e.g., H2O Water with unique, observable properties
e.g., Melody: unitary whole; not simply string of notes
a significant, meaningful structure
Knowledge of Wholes comes from observing wholes
NOT inferred from parts & association
The Origins & Early Development
Philosophy
Kant’s a priori perceptual and cognitive categories
Space & Time are inherent structure of our minds
Husserl’s phenomenology
essential structures that allow the objects naively taken for granted in the “natural attitude” to “constitute themselves” in consciousness
structures of consciousness & phenomena that appear in consciousness
Christian von Ehrenfels
Gestaltqualitat: form qualities (over & above elements)
e.g., melodies
Wholes are the givens of experience
vs. Association: simple, arbitrary connections
Association ignore intrinsic relations, meaning, value
Whole has functional, lawful relations among parts (System)
Change any part –> principled change in whole
Max Wertheimer attended Ehrenfels’ lectures @ Charles U (Prague) while studying Law
The Gestalt Program
Stop Reducing Experience To Sensation
Wundt: sensation is Quality & Intensity in Space-Time
BUT S&T not observed
i.e., a sensation at a diff place = diff sensation
Mach” Space & Time are directly observable
so: sensations have Intensity, Extent & Duration
Franz Brentano (1838-1917) – Act Psychology
Intentionality: science of mental phenomena
study thinking not thoughts
Carl Stumpf (1848-1936)
Student of Brentano (as was Freud)
Perception: Music, acoustics, vision
Clever Hans debunking
Stumpf’s students: Wolfgang Köhler & Kurt Koffka (Gestalt Psych founders)
Apparent Motion
Phi (DEMO): http://mesosyn.com/mental8-14.html
Apparent motion resists analysis (into smaller things)
you can see it, recognize it, distinguish it - but cannot analyze it into sensations
Whole is other than the sum of its parts (Koffka)
IT IS A PHENOMENA
NOT a sensation or set of sensations
EMERGENT: pertains to whole psychophysical situation
Meaningful - not inferred; immediate Psych givens
Eliminated eye movements as an explanation and argued against unconscious inference (too slow)
Gestalt Psychology
Not Just ‘Perception”
– A PROGRAM OF SCI-PSYCH –
read TOC from “Documents”
FOUNDERS
WERTHEIMER – the theoretician
KOFFKA – the writer (most fluent in English)
KOHLER – the spokesman
MAX WERTHEIMER (1880-1943)
Law @ Charles U
–> Berlin for Psych (Under Stumpf)
> Ph.D. from Univ of Würzburg 1904
Learned: introspection & imageless thought
Then Prague, Berlin, and Vienna,
1910:Traveling on vacation, had insight on “seen motion”; got off train in Frankfurt & bought toy stroboscope – worked out Phi motion
Went to Univ & exp. psych lab; started experiments with Kohler & Koffka soon arrived
1916-1929: at Berlin Psychological Institute
With Köhler & Lewin (Koffka was now at Gissen)
KURT KOFFKA (1886-1941)
PhD also w/ Stumph on Rhythm (1910) then Frankfurt (met Kohler & Wertheimer)
Spent year in Edinburgh – Fluent in English
1912-1924: U. Giessen (40m away); Cornell 1924-5;U Wisconsin–Madison 1927-8
Extended Gestalt to Development
Behavioral Fields (see Kohler)
fields that included outer world & objects
basis of Lewins later work on life space
Introduced Gestalt to U.S.
Article on Gestalt Psych & Perception (1922)
WOLFGANG KOHLER (1887-1967)
PhD w/ Stumph in Psych-Acoustics (1909)
Physics w/ Max Planck
Mentality of Apes: Ape Station @ Teneriffe (Spain) 1913-1920 (WWI) – more below
Relations emerge in Gestalten
Perception of Relations <–> Intelligence
Insight <–> quick learning
1920: back to Berlin Lab
Field Systems in Brain
applied physics to bio –>
1922 replaced Stumph as top man at Berlin:
Director of Berlin Psychological Institute (1922-1935)
“Golden Age” until Nazis came to power
APA president - 1959
Exodus
All 3 left Germany for USA in 1930s to escape Nazi
1st Koffka to Smith
not Jewish but objected to Nazi
2nd Wertheimer to U in Exile (later NSSR)
Last Kohler (fled) to Harvard then Swarthmore
others went to Cornell, Kansas, Yale
Others Areas: Sonar, Music, Development, Velocity, Movement
Gestalt Organizing Principles
Figure-ground
Border “belongs” to figure
Ground “extends” behind figure
Figure memorable and substantial
Figure-ground reversals
One or the other, not both
Gestalt organizing principles (continued)
Grouping by proximity
Grouping by similarity
Good continuation
Pragnanz “good figure”
closure
Behavioral vs. Geographical Environment
Lake of Constance story
(Task of Gestalt Psychology p27)
Man rides across a frozen lake, thinking it’s a snow-covered plain
Inn keeper tell him he just rode across the lake
drops dead
Q: In What Environ Did Behavior Take Place?
Geographical environment
was actually a snow-covered frozen lake
Not the whole truth
Behavioral environment
No different than if it were solid ground
Key: we share Geo Environ but have unique Behav. Environ - Kurt Lewin’s Theories
Köhler’s Mentality of Apes (1917) Gestalt Approach to Cognition & Learning
Sultan
Banana hung out of reach on cage top
two-stick problem
combine two sticks
1 stick to reach longer stick
Stacking Crates
Insight
Reorganizing elements of problem situation
Requires being able to view the entire field
Köhler re: Thorndike
Cats couldn’t see the whole field and all the elements of the solution to the problem
Thorndike’s re: Köhler
evidence of trial and error learning
Other Gestalt Research On Cognition
Von Restorff effect (Hedwig von Restorff 1906-1962)
With Kohler in Berlin
Better memory for stimuli that stand apart from the rest
Cat Dog Rabbit Frog Mouse
Cat Dog Rabbit Frog Mouse
Karl Duncker (1903-1940)
With Kohler in Berlin & again at Swarthmore
Functional fixedness: one element of situation already has a (fixed) function
which has to be changed for the
correct perception
Candle problem
Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) Expanding the Gestalt Vision
Modern Social Psych
Group Dynamics; Action Research
PhD from Stumpf (1914)
The War Landscape (1917) - Fought in WWI
Behavioral vs. Geographical environments again
Beginning his field theory
Berlin Psychological Institute (1921-1933)
With Wertheimer and Köhler; Nazi threat (1933)
Cornell (1933-1935), then Iowa (1935-1944), then MIT (1944-1947)
At MIT Research Center for Group Dynamics
Lewin and Field Theory
Nature vs Nuture: Interactionist
Lewin and field theory
B = f (P,E)
Interaction of Person & Environmental factors
Present moment, not past emphasis
Topology
Life space
Vectors & valences
Equilibrium a goal
Conflict
Approach-Approach
Avoidance-Avoidance
Approach-Avoidance
The Zeigarnik effect: tendency to experience intrusive thoughts about an objective that was once pursued and left incomplete
Lewin and Social Psychology
Action Research (1944)
research leading to social action … uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action and fact-finding about the result of the action”
Currently used in community development
The Leadership Studies (1943)
Democratic
originality, group-minded & friendly
Autocratic & Laissez-faire
aggression, hostility, scapegoating & discontent
Difference not result of individual differences; individuals respond to the structure
Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) Expanding the Gestalt Vision (cont)
Lewin and developmental psychology
Differentiation process
Barker, Dembo, & Lewin study (1941)
Frustration and regression
Dedifferentiation
Lewin and social psychology
The leadership studies (e.g., 1943)
Democratic > [Authoritarian = Laissez-faire]
Disturbing effects of switching from D to A or A to D
Action research
e.g., on reducing prejudice
e.g., on workers setting production goals
BIG PICTURE
Start with Whole
Meaningful experience via gestalten properties
More than sum of elements
More than unconscious inference
Mind experiences wholes whose significance transcends the parts
not simply more but unique entities
e.g., MELODY:
a unitary whole; not simply a string of notes
a significant, meaningful structure
