GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

By Michael Angelo T. Abordo

​Activity

Open Ended

What do you see?

Open Ended

What do you see?

Open Ended

What do you see?

Open Ended

How many faces do you see?

• (1887 - 1967)

• Insight Learning or AHA moment

• (1917; The Mentality of Apes),

• (1920; “Physical Gestalt in Rest and Stationary States”)
  (1920; “Physical Gestalt in Rest and Stationary States”)

• Gestalt Psychology (1929)

• 1938 The Place of Values in a World of Facts

Wolfgang Kohler

Open Ended

What word or phrase can you associate with the image?

Köhler studied chimpanzees solving task-related problems. He realized they could actively perceive several possible solutions before finding the answer through a moment of insight.

Insight Learning

Köhler studied chimpanzees solving task-related problems. He realized they could actively perceive several possible solutions before finding the answer through a moment of insight.

Insight Learning

• (1880 - 1943)

• In 1904, he developed a lie detector

• While on a train trip in 1910 he discovered Phi Phenomenon

• In 1921, with others, he founded Psychologische Forschung (“Psychological Research”

• Productive Thinking, 1945

max wertheimer

Open Ended

Phi Phenomenon

What can you say about this?

• (1886 - 1941)

• (1921; The Growth of the Mind)

• “Perception: An Introduction to the Gestalt Theory” (1922)

• Principles of Gestalt Psychology (1935)

kurt koffka

Gestalt psychology

• Founded in the 20th century that provided the foundation for the modern study of perception.

• Gestalt emphasizes that the whole of anything is greater than its parts.

• Our minds naturally seek out patterns and structures in the information we encounter, striving to form a coherent, unified whole.

Gestalt psychology

• In modern German, "Gestalt" mean the way a thing has been “placed,” or “put together.”

• In english, “form” and “shape” are the usual translations.

• In psychology it is often interpreted as “pattern” or “configuration.”

• In other sources, it means "unified whole"

gestalt principles/laws

Gestalt Principles are principles/laws of human perception that describe how humans group similar elements, recognize patterns and simplify complex images when we perceive objects.

​Objects that are close to each other tend to be grouped together.

​​law of proximity

Elements that look similar will be perceived as part of the same form.

​​law of similarity

​When an object is not completely closed, the human mind tend to fill in the gaps.

​​law of closeure

Human mind tend to continue countours whenever the elements established an implied direction.

​​law of continuiuty

This is the tendency to simplify complexity.

law of pragnanz

We tend to pay attention to the foreground and contrast it to the background.

law of figure/ground

Application

A study by Claessens & Wagemans (2018) in the field of Vision Research found that Gestalt principles can help improve the effectiveness of visual learning materials, with students showing a 20% improvement in retention when these principles were applied.

Application

• Teachers should provide the basic framework of the lesson as an organized and meaningful structure, and then go into details.

• Problem-based learning methodologies also arose based on Gestalt principles.

Application

• When students are exposed to the whole of a problem, they can “make sense” of it before engaging in introspective thinking to analyze the connection between elements and craft independent solutions (Çeliköz et al. 2019).

Application

• creating teams/groups

• creating visual aid/presentation

• creating activities

• ​project-based learning

• holistic approach

• mental shortcuts

• role playing

challenges

• too focused on the whole and did not adequately account for the role of context and individual differences in perception

• lack of attention to perceptual phenomena that could not be easily explained by the principles of figure-ground, proximity, similarity, and closure

Open Ended

Which line is the longest?

Müller-lyer Illusion

challenges

• too descriptive

• lack of application to person with learning disability

• it failed to distinguish between thought and perception

challenges

• It paved the way for the rise of cognitive psychology, which focused on mental processes such as memory, perception, and problem-solving. Which led to greater scientific rigor and experimental testing of hypotheses, which ultimately led to a better understanding of human cognition and perception.

sources

• https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-phi-phenomenon-definition-lesson.html

• https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt-principles#:~:text=There%20are%20six%20commonly%20recognized,(also%20known%20as%20pr%C3%A4gnanz)

• https://www.simplypsychology.org/what-is-gestalt-psychology.html

• https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/gestalt-psychology-slideshare/39060983#15

• https://www.toolshero.com/psychology/gestalt-theory-of-learning/#:~:text=The%20main%20advantage%20of%20the,exist%20among%20objects%20and%20events

• https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Max-Wertheimer/76569

• https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Wolfgang-K%C3%B6hler/45891

• https://academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Kurt-Koffka/45869

• https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/229407/view/max-wertheimer-czech-born-psychologist

• https://www.psychestudy.com/behavioral/learning-memory/insight-learning

• https://www.structural-learning.com/post/gestalt-psychology

• Collin et al. (2012).The Psychology Book. Dorling Kinderskey Limited.