The Gestalt Theory and these
Gentlemen an interesting team. The fact
that they came together as students and teacher and had been together sense for
the most part was even more remarkable.
After awhile it did seem that one of them was drifting away from Gestalt
theories, but that may have very well been how I interpreted the reading
instead of how he actually intended it to sound. Other than that the fact that Wertheimer
related Gestalt to music helped me understand it even better than when he used
dots. Being a visual and audible learner
it helped me comprehend a lot better, if only Koffka and Kohler had found a way
to do that as well.
Max Wertheimer was trying to explain
a small part of Gestalt psychology, seeing. “When we are presented with a number of
stimuli we do not as a rule experience ‘a number’ of individual things, this
one and that and that. Instead larger wholes separated from and related to one
another are given in experience; their arrangement and division are concrete
and definite.” All of this was him
saying that we learn through our sight and because of that we see things
differently. Uniformly we see things the
same, but of course as an individual we see things differently and take in
different aspects; Wertheimer uses discontinuous stimulus constellations to
explain this. There are numbers of
arrangements. These arrangements are;
Spontaneous (ab/cd/ef, or a/bc/de, or abc/def/ghi, or a/bcd/efghi, etc.) and Objective
(20mm spaced out vertical lines of dots).
There are three types of factors to describe these arrangements and
constellations; these factors are 1.) The
Factor of Proximity – the two arrangements. 2.) The Factor of Simplicity – likes parts are grouped together (music
was used as an example). 3.) The Factor
of Uniform Destiny – “Sometimes a revolt against the originally dominant Factor
of Proximity will occur and the shifted dots themselves thereupon constitute a
new grouping whose common fate it has been to be shifted above the original
row.”
Kurt Koffka asked one of the
questions that are most asked to anyone who chooses this particular profession,
“Why Psychology?” He of course cannot
answer this question for everyone, but he can explain what psychology is about
and that is what he does by using the Gestalt School to explain himself and to throw
down other theories. Koffka concludes
his article with explanation which I feel is very fitting, “Science abandons
its purpose of treating the whole of existence, if psychology can point the way
where science and life will meet, if it can lay the foundations of a system of
knowledge that will contain the behaviour of a single atom as well as that of
an amoeba, a white rat, a chimpanzee, and a human being, with all the latter’s
curious activities which we call social conduct, music and art, literature and
drama, then an acquaintance with such a psychology should be worthwhile and
repay the time and effort spent in its acquisition.” Also to explain the dilemma of science and
psychology Koffka says this is Wertheimer’s solution, “Far from being compelled
to banish concepts like meaning and value from psychology and science in
general, we must use these concepts for a full understanding of the mind and
the world, which is at the same time a full explanation.” He also concluded that the three only things
to use in psychology and science are Nature, Mind and Life.
Wolfgang Kohler was an interesting
read to say the least. He seemed to
compare Gestalt Therapy to Behaviorists, which was quite interesting because he
seemed against Behaviorism. If he was
against Behaviorism was he actually against Gestalt then as well; it sure
appeared that way throughout this paper to me.
At one point in time he goes to explain how a Gestalt psychologist would
go about explaining motivation which I found interesting, “1.) In human
experience, motivation is a dynamic vector, that is, a fact which has a
direction and tends to cause a displacement in this direction. 2.) Unless there
are obstacles in the way, this direction coincides with an imaginary straight
life drawn from the object to the subject. 3.) The direction of the experienced
vector is either that toward the object or away from it. 4.) The strength of
both the need present in the subject and of the valence exhibited by the object
can vary.”
Needless to say I did not
necessarily achieve getting two pages worth of material, but I felt as though I
grasped everything to the best of my ability as a person who does not
specialize in Gestalt and is just learning it fresh. I only hope I did a decent job in explaining
what I got out of it. It was somewhat
difficult to pick and choose as what I wanted to put in this paper without
making it three or more pages. I
understood a lot more from Koffka than I did from Kohler, but I understood them
both and I very much understood where Wertheimer was coming from as well. I think you should have people read the
entire Wertheimer article next time.
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