The Handy Psychology Answer Book. Lisa J. Cohen

Our perceptual knowledge of the world is based on our recognition of these relationships. For example, let us consider what we recognize as a table. Although a table can be large or small, metal or wood, dark or light, we recognize an object as a table if it has a flat, horizontal plane with one or more supports underneath it. Its gestalt is determined by the relationship among its parts.

      How do Gestalt ideas pertain to perception?

      Gestalt psychology countered the assumption that perception is based solely on the stimulation hitting our sensory organs. As the sensory stimulation coming in differs depending upon the circumstance, we would not be able to recognize an object or person as the same across different situations if our mind did not actively organize our perceptions to recognize the gestalt. For example, we recognize our neighbor as the same person even if he loses weight, changes his clothes, or cuts his hair. Clearly the sensory information differs in each circumstance yet somehow we still recognize our neighbor as one person.

      Who were the pioneers of Gestalt theory?

      Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) is recognized as the father of Gestalt theory. His interest was first piqued when he noticed the illusion of motion while sitting on a train. Although the landscape outside the train was stationary, it seemed to be moving backwards as the train sped by. Most of us have had the same experience. To Wertheimer, however, this phenomenon offered a unique window into the workings of the mind. When he began his investigations at the University of Frankfurt in 1910, two slightly younger psychologists, Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967), and Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) came to work with him. Together they studied the illusion of movement through various experiments. Their research into the phi effect, as Wertheimer named it, was the beginning of a lifelong, shared commitment to Gestalt research and theory. By the mid-1930s, all three men had relocated to the United States, Koffka before Hitler’s rise to power, and Wertheimer and Köhler in direct response to it.

      Why is Gestalt theory important?

      Arguably, Gestalt theory is important more for its profound philosophical implications than for the specifics of its research findings. For one thing, by demonstrating its principles with solid empirical research, Gestalt theory put the study of the mind back into academic psychology. Secondly, Gestalt theory introduced a holistic paradigm, which was in sharp contrast to the associationist approach found in both behaviorism and Wilhelm Wundt’s structuralism. In associationism, complex knowledge is seen to derive entirely from associations between simple memories. Gestalt theorists rejected this view as overly simplistic as they believed that complex knowledge also develops holistically, through recognition of patterns and identification of the whole.

      What does Gestalt theory tell us about optical illusions?

      The Gestalt theorists were fond of optical illusions as they illustrated how the mind actively organizes perceptual information. The fact that we can see something that is not really there shows that our perceptions are more than an exact copy of reality. In the graphic, a field of rounded dots can be seen as either convex (rows of buttons) or as concave (rows of holes). Notice that you can perceive either buttons or holes but you cannot perceive both at the same time. In order for your perception to switch, you have to look at something other than the dots, such as the flat area between the dots.

      How did the holistic view of Gestalt theory go against the scientific worldview of the time?

      In the the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, when psychology was coming into its own as a science, there was tremendous admiration for the accomplishments of physical science. This was a time of extraordinary technological changes. The telephone, the motor car, the moving picture—all of these were relatively recent inventions and all of them radically changed society. Science was exploding across the industrialized world and there was a widely shared assumption that the only worthwhile way to understand reality was through the methods used in the physical sciences. And these methods largely reflected an analytic approach to reason.

      In other words, the way to understand complex phenomena (such as human psychology) was to break it down into its smallest parts (such as stimulus-response associations). Complexity in and of itself was of no interest; it simply reflected a grouping of smaller parts. The whole could be reduced to the sum of its parts. Gestalt theorists challenged this reductionist assumption. They were interested in synthetic reasoning. How do you put the parts back together again? How do you make a whole out of the relationships between parts? Their core position was that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

      What does “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” mean?

      This phrase is one of Gestalt psychology’s most famous contributions. The Gestalt psychologists believed that there are properties of the whole that exist independently of their component parts. Consider that human beings are composed of cells and tissues. At a smaller scale we are composed of atoms. But can we ever explain our loves, our personalities, our prejudices, and even our taste in music solely by studying the behavior of our atoms? Or by studying our cells? The Gestaltists would say no. There are qualities of the whole that cannot be reduced to the qualities of its parts. Although Gestalt theory is best known for its work with perception, this core concept has been applied to almost every aspect of psychology. It has influenced Piagetian developmental psychologists, cognitive psychologists, and even psychotherapists.

      This graphic explaining Gestalt principles also uses Gestalt principles. Notice how you associate each picture with the text near it. This is an example of proximity.

      How did William James’s functionalism anticipate Gestalt theory?

      Gestalt theory had much in common with James’s interest in the holistic flow of consciousness. Like Wertheimer and his colleagues, James did not believe we can understand reality simply by breaking it down into its elemental parts. In order to understand the whole of reality, we must look at it as a whole. Gestalt theorists felt that James did not go far enough, however, in his rejection of reductionist assumptions. But this may not be fair to James, who after all died in 1910, the same year that Wertheimer first became fascinated with the perception of movement.

      What other principles of perception come from Gestalt theory?

      Gestalt psychology proposes a series of rules by which the mind organizes perceptual information. These include the rules of proximity, similarity, simplicity, and closure. The first two rules suggest that objects that are placed closely together (proximity) or are similar to each other (similarity) will be grouped together into a gestalt. The mind will combine them into a whole. Closure reflects the tendency to fill in the gaps of a gestalt. If we see a circle with sections missing, we will still see it as a circle. Further, the mind will group parts into a whole according to the simplest solution.

      What were Wolfgang Köhler’s studies on insight learning?

      Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) was one of Wertheimer’s closest associates. From 1913 to 1920, Köhler was director of the Anthropoid Research Station on the island of Tenerife, which is in the Canary Islands off the coast of Northwest Africa. He had intended to stay in Tenerife for only a short while. With the outbreak of World War I, however, he was unable to leave for several years. While in Tenerife, Köhler conducted an important series of studies on chimpanzees’ problem-solving behavior. He set up rooms where bunches of bananas were placed just out of the chimpanzees’ reach and then watched how they solved the problem of reaching the bananas.

      Although not all chimpanzees were able to successfully solve the problem—evidently chimpanzees, like human beings, vary in their intelligence—those