Gestalt Psychology |
| Gestalt psychology, a movement in experimental psychology, was brought to surface by Christoph von Ehrenfels early in the 20th century. The German word "Gestalt" may be translated as "configuration". The leading theorists of this movement are Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler, whose studies were mainly concerned with problem solving and perception. Their specific way to think about mental phenomena was described as " a view from above". | |
The predecessor of Gestalt Ehrenfels claimed that the perceptual "form quality" was not a simple sum of several parts. Rather, human being could absorb the same set of elements and produce a different set of tones or vice versa. Kohler's investigation of chimpanzees reached the similar conclusion. Abraham Luchins's examination of functional fixness showed that existing experience affected perceiving new problem solving strategies. Wertheimer's research on perception of movement showed that the brain could perceive movement directly, rather than an association of different elementary sensations. In addition, the Gestalt psychology explained the most primitive forms of learning as sheer repetition, while defined intelligent learning as the capacity of mastering the fundamental relations in a situation. Moreover, the Gestaltists put forward recognition of structural characteristics as a new approach to analyze problem solving and contributed the "Gestalt Laws" to visual design.
Other resources:
http://pratt.edu/~arch543p/help/gestalt_psychology.html
http://www.unb.ca/web/courses/fields/module/textbook/ch1pt2e.html