GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

SCOPE OF PRESENTATION

EVOLUTION

THEORY

STUDIES

GESTALT’S FACTORS

IMPLICATIONS IN EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

EVOLUTION OF GESTALT THEORY•Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified whole“

•Theories of visual perception developed by German psychologists in the 1920s.

•These theories attempt to describe how people tend to organize visual elements into groups or unified wholes when certain principles are applied

•Gestalt was a holistic approach and rejected the mechanistic perspectives of the stimulus - response models

GESTALT THEORISTS

Max Wertheimer Wolfgang Köhler Kurt Koffka

The Gestalt theory proposes that learning consists of the grasping of a structural whole and not just a mechanistic response to a stimulus. 

GESTALT THEORY

GESTALT STUDIES OF LEARNING INSIGHT AND MENTALITY OF APES

Köhler: intelligence in apes

Solving the problem:Could the chimp see the

“whole” problem?Would proximity of objects

influence solution of problem?

Insight Spontaneous understanding

of relationships

There is no line making a triangle, so how do we see one?

BISTABLE FIGURE

Can’t explain how we could see two different images that alternate another one, glass/silhouette ???

 If we're thinking about the perils of growing old, we'll on average see the old woman.  But if we're focused on the joys of youth and beauty, it's the young woman that will appear.

Similarity

GESTALT’S FACTORS

PROXIMITY

GESTALT’S FACTORS

http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/closure/closure_a.gif

Closure

GESTALT’S FACTORS

Good continuation

GESTALT’S FACTORS

GESTALT’S FACTORS

Failing to divide figure from ground

FIGURE/GROUND

IMPLICATIONS OF GESTALT’S FACTORS

The Factor of Closure - brain attempts to complete part to generate the whole. 

The Factor of Proximity - when elements are grouped closely together, they are percieved as wholes. 

The Factor of Similarity - learning is facilitated if similar ideas are treated and linked together and then contrasted with opposing or complementary sets of ideas. 

The Figure-Ground Effect - eye tends to see the objects, rather than the spaces or holes between them. 

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