By: Catherine Culberson and Ajla Pervan Heinz Werner By: Catherine Culberson and Ajla Pervan

Biography Born in 1890 in Vienna, Austria Loved music and played the violin and intended to become a composer Fell in love with philosophy and psychology at university In 1917 he joined the Psychological Institute at Hamburg, where he was influenced by the Gestalts In 1943 Brooklyn College gave him his first full-time position in the U.S. In 1947 Clark University hired him as a professor of psychology and education

Organismic Orientation Comparative Approach We should study psychological processes as they occur within the whole acting, feeling, striving whole We should not study perceptual activities in isolation, but as they emerge from the actions and feelings in which they are embedded He wanted to show how the orthogenic principle (when development goes from a state of lack of differentiation to a state of increasing differentiation and hierarchic integration) “enables us to compare developmental patterns across many diverse areas”

Comparative Studies Pictorial imagery Physiognomic perception Unity of the senses Synesthesia

Physiognomic Perception How someone perceives and reacts to dynamic, emotional, and expressive stimuli Usually occurs in such a way that children oftentimes unanimously agree on how a non-living object “feels” An example of this is when someone says that a chair looks sad Usually goes away when children get older Some adults are capable of retaining the ability to experience physiognomic perception completely, such as artists or indigenous people

Synesthesia Unity of the senses into synchronicity An example of this would be hearing a high pitch and saying that it is bright, energetic, and happy Many children have synesthesia like tendencies A child might say that his mother’s voice is light like the daytime It is more prevalent in children than in adults and tends to fade away over time

Our Research Project We presented a GIF of a pyramid with music playing to a group of young students and a group of older students We presented a GIF of a cylinder with music playing to a group of young students and a group of older students Children experience physiognomic perception more than adults, who think it is silly to perceive emotion in inanimate objects We hypothesized that younger children would experience more emotion and the older children would unanimously feel “nothing” We also hypothesized that by adding music we could trigger synesthesia and would add more emotion to how the children perceived the pyramid and cylinder

Results (cylinder experiment) Older children (6th graders) Sex Emotion Why G1 Happy Because it was so out of the ordinary and the music was funny. B1 The music was funny and fast. B2 It made me feel happy in a way that I was just a nice to onto listen to. (It made me feel happy in a way that it was nice to listen to.) G2 Nothing Because all it was doing was spinning around for a few seconds.

Results (cylinder experiment) Younger children (Kindergarten and 2nd grade) Sex Emotion Why B1 Surprised The noise made me feel surprised. B2 Scared Because my heart was beating loud. B3 Happy (also put a check mark next to response) Because it was funny. G1 I didn’t know pictures could move. G2 Happy The music made me laugh. G3 I love the music G4 Because the music scared me.

Results (pyramid experiment) Older children (7th graders) Sex Emotion Why B1 Nothing The music was cool. I think it was one of Beethoven’s symphonies. G1 Surprised I was surprised because it was an unusual GIF and the music was also unique. G2 Surprised (but initially circled “Nothing”) It was different. G3 Well I was expecting that type of image to have that type of music with it.

Results (pyramid experiment) Younger children (3rd and 4th graders) Sex Emotion Why B1 Scared It looks like the Alluminati (Illuminati). B2 Nothing It did not look interesting! G1 Surprised I felt surprised because when the music turned on it surprised me. I liked how the pyramid moved the way it did.

Our questions and hypotheses Are younger children more likely to be emotionally impacted by the music and moving picture when compared to older children? (We predicted that the younger children would be more emotionally impacted than the older children) Is there a significant difference between the way boys and girls perceive the presentation of the music and moving picture? (We predicted that there will be no significant difference) Do children experience sharper objects more negatively than objects with a circular shape? (We predicted that the children would perceive the pyramid experiment more negatively than the cylinder experiment)

Comparison of Age Groups

Are younger children more likely to be emotionally impacted by the music and moving picture when compared to older children? YES! 90% of the younger children claimed they felt either happiness, fear or surprise during the experiment as opposed to 75% of the older children. Hypothesis confirmed!

Limitations in the study related to this question We wanted to compare kindergartners and first graders with seventh and eighth graders but ended up with having to mix kindergartners, second graders, third graders, fourth graders, sixth graders, and seventh graders. Limited amount of children. We had a small group of children (only 18 children). Not the same number of older children (8) and younger children (10). Students changed their answers after seeing what their friends wrote.

Comparison of Sex

Is there a significant difference between the way boys and girls perceive the presentation of the music and moving picture? Yes. 25% of the boys we scared while 10% of the girls were scared. 13% of the boys were surprised and 50% of the girls were surprised. 25% of the boys felt nothing and 10% of the girls felt nothing. Hypothesis NOT confirmed.

Limitations in the study related to this question Limited number of children. We had a small group of children (only 18 children). Not the same number of boys (8) and girls (10). Students changed their answers after seeing what their friends wrote.

Comparison Of Experiments

Do children experience sharper objects more negatively than objects with a circular shape? YES! None of the children participating in the pyramid experiment claimed to feel happy after the experiment, whereas 55% of the children claimed to feel happy after participating in the cylinder experiment. (It is worth mentioning that 14% of the children felt scared participating in the pyramid experiment as opposed to 18% of the children participating in the cylinder experiment. The children who felt scared in the cylinder experiment were the youngest children overall.) Hypothesis confirmed!

Limitations in the study related to this question Limited number of children. We had a small group of children (only 18 children). Not the same number of participants in both experiments Students changed their answers after seeing what their friends wrote Associations (like the boy who felt scared because he associated the pyramid with the Illuminati) The cylinder wasn’t entirely smooth; it had some rough edges The cylinder was pink compared to the pyramid which was black

Other limitations in study A few of the younger children seem to have copied some of the other children’s answers. Laughter from some of the children might have caused other children to feel happy during the experiment; the mood of others can impact one’s feelings

Suggestions More children Equal number of participants in both experiments Each child participating in the experiments individually Better GIFs of the same color

Nature-Nurture Line Nature Nurture Rousseau Werner Locke