Gestalt Psychology Reflection

Jessica Flatequal

PSY/310

11/09/2015
University of Phoenix

Major contributors of Gestalt Psychology were Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler. The main observations, questions, and principles characteristics from Gestalt Psychology became part of every American Psychologists mental equipment. Mark Wertheimer wrote a paper on phi motion in 1912, which was known to start Gestalt Psychology. Throughout this paper I will review the main contributing events in Gestalt Psychology and its influences in America.
Contributions
Gestalt contributed to therapy known as Gestalt therapy which focuses on raising individuals boundaries, needs, and sensory. This therapy helps contribute to one’s own self-worth. Gestalt has always focused on whole rather than individuals. Gestalt psychology focuses on human experiencing psychological events as a whole. Wertheimer shifted his interest from law to philosophy and psychology. He had an influence on other things besides the school of thought such as sensation and perception. Kurt Koffka main interest of study was colors such as the difference of color with short and long wave lengths. As a professor at Smith College where he studied the principles of Gestalt, concentrating on focusing and memory. Wolfgang Kohler worked side by side with Werheimer and Koffka at the University of Frankfurt where he studied perceptual ideas through the study of chimpanzees. Principles Gestalt is a psychology word that means “unified whole” focused on theories of visual perception. Similarity which is when two objects favor each other. When similarity occurs, an object can be emphasized if it is dissimilar to the others. This is called anomaly ("The Gestalt
Principles", n.d.). Continuation is when the eye moves along from one object to another. Closure is when an object is incomplete. Proximity is when objects are placed closely together and can come off as a group. Figure and Ground is when an object such as a silhouette or shape is seen as the figure and whatever background is titled ground. In order to understand the relationship between objects in a problem is called productivity. Productive thinking is when there is no direct solution to a problem. Gestalt practiced different theoretical and methodological principals to find a new approach to psychology. The theoretical principles are the principle of totality and the Principle of psychophysical isomorphism. Principle of totality is - the conscious experience must be considered globally (by taking into account all the physical and mental aspects of the individual simultaneously) because the nature of the mind demands that each component be considered as part of a system of dynamic relationships ("Gestalt Psychology ", 2015). Principle of psychological isomorphism is a correlation exists between conscious experience and cerebral activity ("Gestalt Psychology ", 2015). The methodological principles are Phenomenon experimental analysis—In relation to the Totality Principle any psychological research should take phenomena as a starting point and not be solely focused on sensory qualities. Biotic experiment—the school of gestalt established a need to conduct real experiments that sharply contrasted with and opposed classic laboratory experiments. This signified experimenting in natural situations, developed in real conditions, in which it would be possible to reproduce, with higher fidelity, what would be habitual for a subject ("Gestalt Psychology ", 2015). Gestalt psychology believes in fixing problems as a whole. Psychologists believed in thinking two different ways reproductive and productive. Productive thinking is when you are doing something a come up with a resolutions unintentionally while reproductive thinking is a repeated action in which where the result is known. Another psychologist, Perkins, believes in another three cases with insight processing such as unconscious leap in thinking, the increased amount of speed in mental processing, and the amount of short-circuiting that occurs in normal reasoning. In comparison to cognitive psychology and computational neuroscience, Gestalt psychology is frowned upon for being too descriptive instead of being explanatory in nature. Gestalt psychology was a breath of fresh air to psychologists. It was known to be productive and bring about new questions. The contributions from Gestalts laid the foundation for modern studies. It started new ways for psychologists to study learning, thinking, and memory. Gestalt helped improve individuals understand themselves in order to understand their actions.

References
The Gestalt Principles. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/gestaltprinc.htm
Gestalt Psychology . (2015). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology
Green, C. D. (n.d.). Classics in the History of Psychology. Retrieved from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Kohler/today.html