Wolfgang Kohler and his contributions to psychology

Wolfgang Kohler

Wolfgang Khler and Gestalt psychology: An analysis of Gestalt Psychology Today by Wolfgang Khler (1959)

This address delivered at the sixty-seventh Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association by Wolfgang Khler places the contemporary views and research status of Gestalt psychology and philosophy in a certain light. It emphasizes the innovative and creative process that underlies and supports research on this concept and theory. Khler begins his article with a brief yet insightful overview of the developmental history of Gestalt theory. He emphasizes Wertheimer's unique contribution to the history of Gestalt thinking in his insistence that Gestalt is "...perceptually primary, defining the parts of which it was composed, rather than being an "additional" element over and above the components parts..." (Khler) in other words, Gestalt is seen as a core and fundamental aspect of the understanding of perceptual cognition and not something that comes after the separate elements that can be discerned in the process.

As Khler points out, this view propounded by Wertheimer is an extremely important aspect of the contemporary way in which Gestalt is seen. He compares this view in the history of the subject to von Ehrenfels' earlier views of the quality of the Gestalt. Khler provides a brief but incisive overview of von Ehrenfels' important perception; namely that "...thousands of percepts have characteristics which cannot be derived from the characteristics of their ultimate components, the so-called sensations" (Khler).

However the author goes on to show how Wertheimer was more radical and daringly innovative in his approach. Wertheimer rejected the view that the understanding of perception must proceed in the first instance from certain specific elements;."..he objected to this premise, the thesis that the psychologist's thinking must begin with a consideration of such elements" (Khler). In essence what Wertheimer way saying was that perception was a process that was not just a sum of the separate elements of perception but a collective whole in itself, as determined by the principle of interaction as a primary factor of perceptual formation.

Furthermore, Wertheimer followed his assumptions up with experiments in non- stationary and later in stationary perceptual data. And as Khler summarizes, Wertheimer found that, "... we cannot assume that the perceptual scene is an aggregate of unrelated elements because underlying processes are already functionally interrelated when that scene emerges..." (Khler). This leads to the view that perceptual groups are created by interaction and that perception originates within relationships. This is an underlying process of which the ordinary observer in not aware.

However the central aim of this paper is not a summation the history of Gestalt philosophy but rather is intended to show the importance of creative and speculative thought in the initiation of new paradigms and concepts; as well as in new views about reality and psychology. The author uses the brief overview of Gestalt theory to stress the underlying importance and the motivational roots of experimental and adventurous thinking that lay beneath the discovery of Gestalt, as well as in other innovative scientific and psychological discoveries.. He describes earlier psychological research that was determined by formal logocentric and rationalistic approaches as a "prison"; and that this was a prison that needed to be broken out of, as it were, in intellectual terms. This refers to the prevailing view at the time that all facets in psychology were the result of "...unrelated inert atoms and that almost the only factors which combine these atoms and thus introduce action are associations formed under the influence of mere contiguity..."(Khler). This was felt to be a unsatisfactory representation of reality and provided the impetus towards creative theories of perception, such as the Gestalt, that were consistent with a more dynamic and "colorful" world view.