GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Gestalt theory was the initial cognitive response to behaviorism. It emphasized the importance of sensory wholes and the dynamic nature of visual perception. The term gestalt means "form" or "configuration." Psychologists Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka studied perception and concluded that perceivers (or learners) are not passive, but rather active. They suggested that learners do not just collect information as is but they actively process and restructure data in order to understand it. This is the perceptual process. Certain factors impact on this perceptual process. Factors like past experiences, needs, attitudes and one's present situation can affect their perception.

One may have difficulty perceiving both the words "you" and "me" in the first picture in the activity if one is trying to forget an ex-sweetheart who caused pain; or simply because he was looking on the foreground and not the background.

According to the gestalt psychologists, the way we form our perceptions are guided by certain principles or laws. These principles or laws determine what we see or make of things or situations we meet.

Gestalt Principles

Law of Proximity. Elements that are closer together will be perceived as a coherent object. On the left, there appears to be three columns, while on the right, there appears to be three horizontal rows. When objects we are perceiving are near each other, we perceive them as belonging together.

Law of Similarity. Elements that look similar will be perceived as part of the same form. There seems to be a triangle in the square. We link similar elements together

Law of Closure. We tend to fill the gaps or "close" the figures we perceive. We enclose a space by completing a contour and ignoring gaps in the figure.

Law of Good Continuation. Individuals have the tendency to continue contours whenever the elements of the pattern establish an implied direction. People tend to draw a good continuous line.

Law of Good Pragnanz. The stimulus will be organized into as good a figure as possible. In this example, good refers to symmetry, simplicity and regularity. The figure is perceived as a square overlapping a triangle, not a combination of several complicated shapes. Based on our experiences with perception, we "expect" certain patterns and therefore perceive that expected pattern.

Law of Figure/Ground. We tend to pay attention and perceive things in the foreground first. A stimulus will be perceived as separate from its ground.

Insight Learning

Gestalt psychology adheres to the idea of learning taking place by discovery or insight. The idea of insight learning was first developed by Wolfgang Kohler in which he described experiments with apes where the apes could use boxes and sticks as tools to solve problems. In the box problem. A banana is attached to the top of a chimpanzee's cage. The banana is out of reach but can be reached by climbing on and jumping from a box. Only one of Kohler's apes (Sultan) could solve this problem. A much more difficult problem which involved the stacking of boxes was introduced by Kohler This problem required the ape to stack one box on another, and master gravitational problems by building a stable stack. Kohler also gave the apes sticks which they used to take food into the cage. Sultan, Kohler's very intelligent ape, was able to master a two-stick problem by inserting one stick into the end of the other in order to reach the food. In each of these problems, the important aspect of learning was not reinforcement, but the coordination of thinking to create new organizations (of materials). Kohler referred to this behavior as insight or discovery learning.

Kohler proposed the view that insight follows from the characteristics of objects under consideration. His theory suggested that learning could occur when the individual perceives the relationships of the clements before him and reorganizes these elements and comes to a greater understanding or insight. This could occur without reinforcement, and once it occurs, no review, training or investigation is necessary. Significantly, insight is not necessarily observable by another person.

Gestalt Principles and the Teaching-Learning Process

The six gestalt principles not only influence perception but they also impact on learning. Other psychologists like Kurt Lewin expounded on gestalt psychology. His theory focusing on "life space" adhered to gestalt psychology. He said that an individual has inner and outer forces that affect his perceptions and also his learning. Inner forces include his own motivation, attitudes and feelings. Outer forces may include the attitude and behavior of the teacher and classmates. All these forces interact and impact on the person's learning. Mario Polito, an Italian psychologist, writes about the relevance of gestalt psychology to education