Gestalt psychology was an early 20th century movement defined in large part by the idea that our perceptual experience is organized, or structured, in various ways that cannot be reduced to, or explained in terms of, a mere aggregation of simple component sensations.
One category of phenomena particularly important for motivating this conclusion are bistable figure–ground effects. When viewing the image below, for instance, one experiences it as organized into a cross (figure) against a uniform background; furthermore, the part of the image that stands out as cross may switch between two stable configurations (hence: “bistable”), either the thin-bladed or the thick-bladed cross. Crucially, the informational input to the visual system, and thus any “simple,” point sensations, stays the same while the organization of the experienced image changes; thus this figure-ground structure cannot be reduced to a mere aggregation of these supposed point sensations.
Not only does this phenomenon appear to be universal, aspects of it may be systematically manipulated and measured quantitatively (for instance, the speed at which one’s experience switches between the two configurations). Well-known examples of bistable images include the Necker Cube and Rubin’s Vase.
The most influential strand of gestalt psychology emerged in Berlin, most immediately under the influence of Max Wertheimer, and developed by Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka, Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Metzger, and others. It was on track to be the dominant force in German psychology as Köhler rose to director of the Psychological Institute of the University of Berlin in the 1920’s and 30’s, but was cut short by the intervention of Nazi politics. The major figures of gestalt psychology who escaped the war were spread thinly throughout the US, a gestalt diaspora that failed to muster enough momentum to halt the tide of behaviorism, and is largely remembered within psychology for the collection of perceptual effects it discovered.
In addition to the Berlin school, a distinct strand of gestalt psychology arose in Graz — for background on the doctrinal differences and rivalries between Berlin and Graz, see the talk from our inaugural conference by Guillaume Frechette.
For book length introductions to gestalt psychology, see Köhler’s Gestalt Psychology or Metzger’s Laws of Seeing. For the purposes of our reading group, here are two short suggested background readings that establish some basic ideas of the Berlin school, one from its very inception, the other a retrospective:
Wertheimer, Max (1924) “Gestalt Theory” (address to the Kant Society, Berlin, different translations available here and here)
Köhler, Wolfgang (1967) “Gestalt Psychology” (address to the American Psychological Association, published in Psychologische Forschung 31: 18–30)
