The Handy Psychology Answer Book. Lisa J. Cohen

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      This graphic explaining Gestalt principles also uses Gestalt principles. Notice how you associate each picture with the text near it. This is an example of proximity.

      How did William James’s functionalism anticipate Gestalt theory?

      Gestalt theory had much in common with James’s interest in the holistic flow of consciousness. Like Wertheimer and his colleagues, James did not believe we can understand reality simply by breaking it down into its elemental parts. In order to understand the whole of reality, we must look at it as a whole. Gestalt theorists felt that James did not go far enough, however, in his rejection of reductionist assumptions. But this may not be fair to James, who after all died in 1910, the same year that Wertheimer first became fascinated with the perception of movement.

      What other principles of perception come from Gestalt theory?

      Gestalt psychology proposes a series of rules by which the mind organizes perceptual information. These include the rules of proximity, similarity, simplicity, and closure. The first two rules suggest that objects that are placed closely together (proximity) or are similar to each other (similarity) will be grouped together into a gestalt. The mind will combine them into a whole. Closure reflects the tendency to fill in the gaps of a gestalt. If we see a circle with sections missing, we will still see it as a circle. Further, the mind will group parts into a whole according to the simplest solution.

      What were Wolfgang Köhler’s studies on insight learning?

      Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) was one of Wertheimer’s closest associates. From 1913 to 1920, Köhler was director of the Anthropoid Research Station on the island of Tenerife, which is in the Canary Islands off the coast of Northwest Africa. He had intended to stay in Tenerife for only a short while. With the outbreak of World War I, however, he was unable to leave for several years. While in Tenerife, Köhler conducted an important series of studies on chimpanzees’ problem-solving behavior. He set up rooms where bunches of bananas were placed just out of the chimpanzees’ reach and then watched how they solved the problem of reaching the bananas.

      Although not all chimpanzees were able to successfully solve the problem—evidently chimpanzees, like human beings, vary in their intelligence—those that did so exhibited similar behavior. For one, they would often try to reach the bananas simply by jumping or reaching for them. Upon failing to grasp the bananas, they would often show frustration, screaming, or kicking the walls of the room. Eventually, after surveying the entire room, they would eventually derive a solution involving the use of nearby objects as tools. One chimp might drag a box under the bananas and then climb on top of it to reach them. Some chimps stacked multiple boxes to attain their goal. Another might put two sticks together to create a stick long enough to reach the food.

      Was Wolfgang Köhler a German spy?

      There has been controversy regarding Köhler’s stay in the Canary Islands during World War I. A number of people, specifically British intelligence agents, believed he was a German spy. Evidently they were not convinced that his fascination with chimpanzees and bananas was sufficient explanation of his presence. Some contemporary writers still believe the issue is unsettled although no evidence has been produced that proves he was anything more than a Gestalt psychologist.

      What did Köhler’ studies with chimps show?

      These studies showed two things. For one, the animals arrived at their solutions only after surveying the entire environment. They did not just focus on a single object but took the entire field into account. Secondly, the problem was not solved through trial and error via rewards and punishments as the behaviorists would have predicted. Instead the animal arrived at a complete solution all at once. In other words, the chimps did not solve problems in a piecemeal fashion, but rather in a holistic way. Köhler referred to this holistic form of problem solving as insight learning.

      What is the difference between Gestalt psychology and Gestalt psychotherapy?

      Gestalt therapy, a school of psychotherapy founded by Fritz Perls in the 1940s, is completely distinct from Gestalt psychology, the body of research and theory derived from Max Wertheimer’s experiments with perception. Gestalt therapy is commonly considered part of humanistic psychology and incorporates principles from the philosophical schools of phenomenology and existentialism as well as psychoanalysis and Gestalt psychology.