Gestalt psychology

Gestalt psychology
• Gestalt psychology developed as a reaction to structuralism in early 1900s
• Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that looks at the human mind
and behavior as a whole

• Gestalt is a German word, means configuration (a complete shape)

• The whole is more the sum of its parts
 Gestalt psychology
• In contrast to a structuralism approach of breaking down conscious
experience into elements, or focusing upon the structure, the gestalt school
of thought emphasized the significance of studying any phenomenon in
its overall form
• The concept of gestalt applies to everything, object, ideas, thinking
processes and human relationship.
 Major Gestalt psychologist
• Max Wertheimer
• Kurt kuffka
• Wolfgang kholer
 Max Wertheimer 1880 – 1943

• He was the founder of gestalt psychology born in prague in 1880

• Studied at the university of Frankfurt he became aware of the form of
apparent motion that was phi phenomenon
• Phi phenomenon = when two or more lights are in close proximity to each
other, flashing alternatively , appear to be one light moving back and
forth; therefore the whole was different from the separate parts
 Gestalt law of organization

• In order to better understand human perception works gestalt psychologists

proposed a number of laws of perceptual organization including
• Law of proximity
• Law of similarity
• Law of Good continuation (continuity )
• Law of closures
• Law of figure and ground
 Law of proximity

According to law of proximity, thing that are near each other seems to be
grouped together ,Wertheimer noted that rapid sequence of events create the
illusion of motion. In the above image , the circles on the left appear to be
part of on grouping while those on the right appear to be part of another .
because the object are closer to each other we group them together
Law of proximity
 Law of similarity

• The law of similarity suggest that things similar tend to appear grouped
together. Grouping can occur both in visual and auditory stimuli. In the
image above the probably see the grouping of squares and circles as
columns.
 Law of good continuation

• Law of continuity hold that the points that are connected by straight or
curving lines are seen in the way that follows the smoother path. Rather
than seeing separate lines and angles, lines are seen as belonging together
Law of good continuation
 Law of closure

• Thing are group together if they seems to complete some entity . our
brain often ignore contradictory information and fill in gaps in
information
Law of closure
 Law of figure and ground

• The eye differentiate the an object from its surrounding area . shape is
naturally perceived as figure (object), while surrounding area is perceived
as ground (Background)
Law of figure and ground
Law of figure and ground
Law of figure and ground
 Kurt koffka

• Wrote his famous book “principle of Gestalt Psychology “ in 1935

• He talked about geographical versus behavioral Environment people’s
behavior is determined by how they perceive the environment rather than
the nature of the environment.
• A child who touches a hot stove will learn not to touch it again.
 Wolfgang Kholer

• He gave the concept of insight and transposition as the result of his

observation cage chimpanzee and experiment with chickens
• Insight : spontaneous restructuring of the situation
• Transposition : Generalization of knowledge from one situation to
another
 Other major contribution

• Zegarnik ’s Effort
• Bluma Zegarnik experiment according to this , we remember interrupted
task better the tension caused by unfinished tasks help us in remembering
• Group dynamics
• Instead of focusing on people’s individual attributes we should sees
them as whole person