1. There is More to Perception than Meets the Eye
About Gestalt Psychology

2. Gestalt Theory
Sees the brain as a dynamic system in which elements interact
The brain organizes our perceptions
It does so by creating a kind of “map” (isomorphism), which is a good --though not perfect-- guide to the outside world
Gestalt Theory

3. Gestalt and Body-Mind The stimuli configurations
Activate an existing brain isomorphism
Which result in what we perceive
Mind-perceptual organization, and sensory organ-stimulus exist in parallel
This is DUALISM, and DOUBLE ASPECTISM where there is a connection, but not an influence.

4. Some principles of perceptual organization
Perceptual constancies (size, form, brightness)
Proximity, continuity, similarity, closure, simplicity (good form), figure/ground
(Look at Wertheimer's original 1923 article for examples)

5. Proximity grouping (1)

6. Proximity Grouping (2)

7. Proximity grouping (3)

9. Bias in lines organization

10. Common fate

11. Read the content (1)

12. Read the content (2)

13. Read the content (3)
Images from

14. Impossible figures. Why?

15. In summary In Gestalt, the mind is active
It creates structures that parallel sensory reality, and serve as a guide
The structure that emerges is MORE than the sum of the parts.

16. Forerunners of Gestalt Psychology
Immanuel Kant ( )
Franz Brentano ( )
Ernst Mach ( )
Christian von Ehrenfels ( )
William James ( )
Carl Stumf ( )

17. form or create a whole experience
Immanuel Kant says…
The mind
in the process of perceiving will
form or create a whole experience

18. Perception is An ACTIVE construction of the elements of experience
Not an automatic accumulation of these elements

19. the act of experiencing
Franz Brentano says
Psychology ought to study
the act of experiencing

20. Ernst Mach noticed
We perceive a table as a table, even as its orientation changes
We recognize a melody in a different key

21. Christian von Ehrenfels claimed
The mind, operating on the sensory elements
creates form

22. William James said: Elements are artificial
The mind perceives objects as WHOLE

23. Carl Stumf
And the phenomenologists want to use the whole of immediate experience as the basic data of study.

24. If the mind is active If the mind is active
And our perception organizes and transforms "what is there"
Can we really ever know "what is there"?

25. If we cannot know "what is there"
How do we approximate it?
By "bracketing" (I.e. setting aside) the question of the existence of the object itself (because that cannot be solved)
And using the method of "systematic variations" to get a wide sample of experience

26. More about phenomenologyAt
Note: Edmund Husserl ( ) is the official founder of the phenomenology movement as a philosophical movement.

27. Meanwhile in the natural sciences
Interest in electromagnetic fields and other complex, global phenomena
All part of a "more global" Zeitgeist.

28. The Main Players Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) Kurt Koffka (1886-1941)
Wolfgang Köhler ( )
Kurt Lewin ( ) Field Theory
Kurt Goldstein ( )

29. Max Wertheimer (1880-1943) Official Gestalt founder
Discovers the PHI phenomenon
Started the journal Psychological Research (w/ Koffka, Köhler, Goldstein and Gruhle)
His best known book Productive Thinking was published in 1945
Main

30. Kurt Koffka ( )
Wrote the first article about Gestalt psychology in the Psychological Bulletin (1922)
Published The Growth of the Mind (1921)
Published Principles of Gestalt Psychology
Main

31. Wolfgang Köhler ( )
Known for his chimpanzee research, and especially the notion of insight learning in problem solving. He wrote The Mentality of the Apes (1917)
In 1929, published Gestalt Psychology
1959 became APA President

32. Köhler (2)
He was in Germany when Hitler came to power and was the ONLY non Jewish academic psychologist who opposed the Nazi regime publicly and protested the dismissal of Jewish professors from academia. He left Germany in 1935.
Main

33. Kurt Goldstein (1878-1965) A neuropsychologist (and psychiatrist)
Wrote a classic book: The Organism
In this book, he studied brain injured patients and the manner in which the nervous system responded both in trauma and in reconstruction: globally rather than specifically

34. Field Theory: Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)
A person’s psychological activities occur within a life space field.
Within the life space are all present, past, or future events that may affect us.
Various elements have + or - valences, on the basis of which movements and/or conflicts occur
Unfinished tasks create tension (Zeigarnik effect)

35. Group Dynamics Kurt Lewin originated the concept of Group Dynamics.
Famous study of leadership styles among groups of boys.
The “Research Center for Group Dynamics” which he started at MIT is still active today at the University of Michigan.

36. THE END