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

2. 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

3. 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”

4. Comparative Studies Pictorial imagery Physiognomic perception
Unity of the senses
Synesthesia

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

15. 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)

16. Comparison of Age Groups

17. 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!

18. 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.

19. Comparison of Sex

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. Comparison Of Experiments

23. 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!

24. 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

25. 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

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

27. Nature-Nurture Line
Nature
Nurture
Rousseau
Werner
Locke