Reading Activity Week #10 (due Tuesday)

The first thing that I found interesting in the chapter was the reading about Ivan Pavlov. I like learning about Pavlov’s experiments and thought it would be interesting to find more background information about him. I thought it was interesting that he was born into poverty yet somehow was able to engage himself in the science.

A second thing that I found interesting was Pavlov’s laboratory. I think it is neat that somebody was able to illustrate the kinds of experiments that Pavlov used to conduct. One of them in particular that caught my attention was how Pavlov conducted a test to have the food a dog swallowed flow out of the body before it reached the stomach. It was interesting to learn how the dog still released the gastric fluids in preparation to digest food.

A third thing that I found interesting was the Watson/Carr Maze studies. I think it is interesting to observe an animal’s ability to escape a situation where they are trapped. I think it is cool to look at an animal and roam on the thought that they are in the middle of higher level thinking. Sometimes we forget that were not the only humans with higher level thinking capabilities. I think it is also interesting how Watson was able to remove the animal’s senses while conducting some of his experiments.

Something that I did find interesting was Pavlov’s impact on the Americans. It wasn’t really content that I cared about. I figured that Pavlov would have been recognized sooner in America.

The applied psychologist that I found most interesting was Watson because of his tests on animals without their senses in some experiments. I think that his work would have been more interesting to follow because of his unique experiments. I also believe that his work would be most useful to understanding psychology for the rest of the course because of his work in emotional development. I think that because of his emotional development studies we are able to analyze the mind as it grows and figure out why our minds are constructed the way they are.

A topic in this chapter that relates to an earlier one is when Watson conducts his experiments on animals to figure out a maze. This correlates to a previous chapter where we read about Thorndike. Thorndike conducted experiments where he had cats try and escape out of a puzzle box. I think these two go hand in hand. The person that I would definitely like to learn about more would have to be Watson. I think this is the best person in the chapter next to Pavlov to study. They both have a lot of contributions to the history of psychology and their experiments will be studied in classrooms forever. I want to learn about Watson most though because his experiments are the most appealing to me. I would want to learn how animals function with limited senses.

The first thing that I found interesting from chapter nine is the distinction between geographical environment and the behavioral environment found in Principles of Gestalt Psychology. The geographical environment is the world as it is, and the behavioral environment is the world as we perceive it. In this reading, Koffka uses a German folktale to make his point on these distinctions. It describes a traveler who is travelling in the winter who reaches an inn after riding for hours over what seemed to him to be a snow-covered plain. The inn keeper then asked the traveler if he had known that he was travelling over the Lake of Constance. The rider then dropped stone dead. This old folktale shows us an instance where the behavioral environment (the wide open snow-covered plain) did not match the geographical environment (the frozen lake that could easily crack). I was interested in this piece of information because I often wonder if the physical world is really like the world we perceive it as.

The second thing that I found interesting in chapter 9 is Kurt Lewin's Field Theory. Lewin believed that understanding a person's behavior could only be done through knowing all of the forces that are acting on the person at any given moment. The specific field in which the person operates is named life space by Lewin. He defined it as a psychological field that includes the "totality of facts which determine the behavior (B) of an individual at a certain moment.... [It] includes the person (P) and the environment (E)" The facts of the person such as personality, needs, beliefs, and goals. According to Lewin, this is not just the physical environment, but how the individual perceives the environment. Behavior is a joint function of environment and physical characteristics. Lewin summarizes this in a famous formula: B=F(P,E). I was interested in this because it seems that in psychology it is of main interest to learn why a person emits a particular behavior based on their physical or environmental interactions.

The third thing that I found interesting in chapter 9 is the Zeigarnik Effect. Lewin gathered a team of graduate students and they would occasionally meet at a local cafe to discuss their work for hours. Lewin noticed that the waiter could easily and impressively remember what each person had ordered before paying their bill. Surprisingly, after the bill was paid, the waiter had no recognition of what each graduate student had ordered. To Lewin, the explanation was that the waiter’s life space had tension to it, which was the bill. Once the bill had been paid, closure had been achieved. Zeigarnik then tested this directly. She individually tested 164 teachers, children and students by giving them between 18 to 22 simple tasks. These tasks included things such as making clay figures, completing puzzles and mental tasks. She would then interrupt the subject at a time when their work was at a high concentration peak. She then found that interrupted tasks were 1.9 times more likely to be recalled as the uninterrupted ones. In all, the result of good memory of the task is a result of unrelieved tension of the incomplete task. I found this interesting because I am a server and it is true that after someone pays their bill you forget all about it because the tension of the bill is resolved.

The one thing that I found least interesting from chapter 9 is the Von Restorff effect. This has to do with the discovery of people being able to learn lists with a three-digit number embedded in a series of nonsense syllables. If these lists are learned properly, then the number would almost always be recalled better than the symbols. I found this to be least interesting because I tend to learn a lot about studies that are conducted with lists and numbers. I feel that these studies all run together and are not as intriguing anymore.

The applied psychologist from this chapter that I found the most interesting is Kohler. I enjoyed his Mentality of Apes which summarized his problem solving research with animals. I like how he challenged the research of Thorndike, which is another psychologist that I really liked learning about. He claimed that Thorndike's trial-and-error learning in animals was incorrect. He instead said that animals could solve problems quickly and show insight if they were able to perceive all elements of the situation that they are in at the moment.

The thing that I read in chapter 9 that I think will be most useful to understanding the history of psychology is the origins and development of Gestalt Psychology. Like any field of psychology, it is important to know where that field originated. Gestalt Psychology originated in the 19th century. It is important to know which psychologists developed each theory and how that relates to what is in the chapter.

Like every chapter, the main topic covers various psychologists, their theories. This chapter is similar to other chapters because we are learning more about psychology and how certain ideas were adapted. This chapter is the same because the research conducted is conducted with people, animals, pictures and tests like the previous chapters.

The person that I would like to learn more about from chapter 9 is Kurt Lewin. I enjoyed reading about his life space concept and the given factors that influence a person's actions at that given moment. I would like to learn more about the behavioral consequences that unresolved tension in a person can lead to. I would also like to learn more about his studies on frustration. In one of his studies he gave children an attractive toy, then took it away resulting in frustration. I would also like to do further studies on his consequences of different types of leadership styles.

The first thing that I found interesting was only a few pages into the chapter and dealt with Apparent Motion. I have made it no secret in past assignments that I don’t find reading about eye sensory and recognition enjoyable or interesting. That is why I was surprised that I was interested when they were talking about the two flashing lights being viewed as one single light moving from left to right. I guess was intrigued by this because it was cool that they brain can perceive things like this if we figure out the best way to manipulate it. This manipulation was what was most interesting to me, granted it was a small example but it would be interesting to learn if there were other examples of this “fusion” and the “logical inference” about the light moving from A to B.
The Von Restorff effect was another thing that I found interesting first of all because I was not so shocked to learn about the number recognition in a series of syllables, but I was surprised to learn that it was an official theory. The book just gave us examples of numbers with random letters, but I think there are obviously more places where you can pick out information that stands out compared to the rest. This reminded me of an exercise I did in my education class last year. We were shown a “random” series of letters for only 3 seconds and were asked to recall what we saw. Most students couldn’t remember what they saw but there was a series of letters that stuck out, JFK, LBJ, FDR, the 3 initials are instantly recognizable because of the Presidents they are associated with but other than that it was impossible to remember what else we saw.
The Last thing that I found interesting was the Behavioral vs. Geographic Environments. I thought the story about the rider going across what he thought was an open plain, only to find out that he had come across a huge frozen lake, where he could have died, and apparently had a hear t attack. I have always been interested in the different perceptions that two people can have over the same situation. As the book points out if a botanist and a geologist walk through the same woods together then they will probably have 2 very different experiences, while in the same geographic location. I also think that this goes back to an early chapter, either 2or 3, where they talked about somebody thinking it was “cold” outside when compared to another person in the same location but who was wearing a coat and did not consider it cold outside. There are also a few similarities between this and the whole nature vs. nurture debate.
Usually I find Pavlov interesting, and I still do, but I have read all about him before and have gotten slightly burned out on reading about him. It’s not that I don’t want to learn about him I just don’t want to read about him again and again in every chapter. And finally the person I would like to learn more about is the gestalist named Kurt Koffka who was a big advocate for the Behavioral and Geographic Environments. This was the thing I found most interesting and it only seems fitting that I would find more information on this man.

One of the things I found interesting from the chapter was the close up on espionage. The time Kohler spent on the Canary Islands doing his research was during WWI. It was interesting to me that during one his most important research and contributions to the field of psychology was almost stopped due to suspicion of Kohler being a spy for the Germans. Ley went to look for evidence to back this claim originally he could not find anything to back the claims. Ley, eventually he heard from the British that someone was signaling the Germans and Kohler had a radio in which to signal the Germans. It is thought that Kohler had made some contributions to the German war effort. However, it would turn out that these rumors were more here say rather than fact.
Another topic of interest to me was the Law of Organization in Perceptual forms. This law interested me because of how it describes how we perceive optical illusions. His law describes three different ways we are able to perceive optical illusions. He organized these ways by proximity, similarity, and good continuation. These principles follow how we perceive visual stimuli. All of these laws together are called Pragnanz. There is also another Pragnanz phenomenon called closure where we fill in gaps of a perceived figure so it makes more sense to us.
I also found Wertheimer’s view on productive thinking interesting as well. As a soon to be teach I try to take in all I can to do with education in this class. I found this interesting because he tried to teach a group of students geometry. He started with simple shapes that the students understood how to solve quite well. However, when he moved on to more complex shapes the students had difficulty applying what they had already learned to solve the shape. His solution was to start their education on a more simple level. He introduced his students first to real life examples and then had they build upon that.
One topic I found disinteresting was the Zeigarnik effect. To me it seemed like a lot of background and buildup information to describe a relatively simple topic. Describing that memory is better for incomplete rather than complete tasks.
The psychologist from the chapter that I found most interesting was Max Wetheimer. I was really interested in his productive thinking theories and I would like to see if I could learn a little more about some of his theories. I feel that his productive thinking closely relates to some of the earlier theories we have learned about such as the forgetting curve. It also ties into the testing studies done by psychologists in the last chapter.
This chapter does a great job talking about Gestalt psychology and describing early psychologists associated with this method. It really gives great insight into the methods and theories related to this psychology helping greatly to grasp the history behind it.

One thing that I found interesting was Kohler on Insight in Apes. I really enjoyed this because I love learning about studies involving intelligence and learning in monkeys. I thought it was incredible that the ape, Sultan, learned how to retrieve a banana from outside the cage by hooking together two short sticks to create one long one. I also found it plausible that the monkey could have learned how to do so through trial and error.

I also enjoyed reading about Wertheimer’s Productive thinking. I really struggle with applying memorized equations to problems, so I enjoyed reading that the results of his studies were that productive classroom thinking has to go beyond memorization. I have also found it true that by taking a difficult problem and breaking it down into a simpler one, it becomes more capable of being solved, which is an aspect that Werheimer touched on.

I found the Zeigarnik effect to be very interesting. There is a restaurant back home, in which the waitresses do not write down your order until it has been called back to the cooks, and they figure up the bill. Some of the waitresses are very good at recalling what you wanted, while others have to ask again. I found the concept of the Zeigarnik effect to be interesting because it was based on the same scenario. I also enjoyed the results that memory was enhanced by incomplete tasks because I often feel this way about things, just as course material and tests. It seems that once I am done with a class and will no longer be tested on something, I forget it.

One thing that I did not find interesting in this chapter was the introduction on the origins and early development of Gestalt psychology. I found this section to be very long, and it did not capture my attention. I felt that it could have been more condensed, elaborating on the main ideas in different sections.

The applied psychologist that I found most interesting was Kohler. I really enjoyed reading about his studies with the apes. I enjoyed how he tested the work of others to develop his own theories.

I think that understanding Gestalt psychology and the individuals who first utilized it is important to understanding the history of psychology. I think that it is also important to understand who helped to develop concepts and approaches through studies of their own.

One way that this chapter relates to previous ones is that it continues to bring in psychologists that have been previously discussed. For example, when reading about Kohler, it says that he began testing Thorndike’s puzzle experiments when working on The Mentality of Apes. Thorndike was previously discussed in chapter 7. The book continues to build on theories and discuss how they have been tested and have evolved due to other psychologists.

An individual that I would like to learn more about would be Max Werheimer. I found a lot of his work mentioned in the book very interesting, and would like to learn more about him.

I found the concept of behavioral versus geographic environments very interesting. Behavioral environment is defined in the book referring to the environment as perceived, as contrasted with the physical environment. Geographic environment is defined in the book referring to the physical environment, as contrasted with the environment as perceived. An example of this would be temperature. Thirty-two degrees is thirty-two degrees no matter where you are. Living in Iowa, this is a common temperature and at times may even seem warm; I find it to be a comfortable temperature. My sister-in-law lived in Florida for a few years and thinks that thirty-two is freezing and is incredibly uncomfortable. The temperature is clearly the same but we both perceive it differently.

I also found the section on insight in apes to be very interesting. I typically find animal learning studies interesting anyways so to me this was a good display of that. Kohler used one of his chimps, Sultan, to display his theory on insight as a counter to Thorndike’s trial-and-error learning theory. He believed that Thorndike’s cats were not able to perceive the entire field and this was why it took them so many attempts to escape quickly. The setup for his research was that Sultan was locked up and there was a banana placed outside of his cage and he had two sticks in the cage, both too short to reach it on its own. Eventually Sultan put the sticks together which made it long enough to retrieve the banana. The chimp did not learn this quickly and made many attempts at the banana until he came to this conclusion. This to me just proves Thorndike’s theory on trial-and-error learning.

Finally, I found the Zeigarnik effect to be very interesting. In the book it is defined as a tendency to be more likely to recall unfinished tasks than finished tasks. Lewin first started realizing this theory when he went to a small café with his students, the waiter was able to memorize all of their orders and who they belonged to, but after the check had been taken care of, he no longer remembered. One of his students, Zeigarnik, tested this theory and had participants come in and complete a certain set of tasks. Zeigarnik would then come in, at the moment when they were most engrossed in their work, and interrupt what they were doing. She found that participants were 1.9 times likely to recall the interrupted tasks to the uninterrupted ones.

What I found to be least interesting was the subject on Lewin’s field theory. I had a difficult time understanding this section and after rereading, it seems very difficult to measure. He believed that “understanding a person’s behavior required knowing about all the forces acting on a person at a given moment.” This is just incredibly difficult to measure and there is no way in knowing everything going on at a given time which influences a person’s behavior.

The applied psychologist I found most interesting was Kohler and is also the person I would like to learn more about. I found his theories to be most interesting in the chapter and also found his research on insight in apes to be very interesting as well. I would like to learn more about him and the different research he ran.

This chapter had a lot to do with perception and I feel as though this will be most useful in understanding the history of psychology. This also goes back to the section on physiology. Many physical happenings, such as the two-point threshold test, have to do with our perception of what is happening. Even though throughout the entire test two small points are poking us, we perceive only one until the points are a certain distance apart.

The first thing I found interesting in this chapter reading about Wertheimer and his discovery of motion pictures. He noticed that the interval between the flashing of two lights is just right, the perception is of a single side to side light rather than just two lights turning on and off. This interests me mostly because of how many movies we watch now and how it started so long ago with such a simple, yet distinct concept. His study of apparent motion really caught my attention and the perceived motion because it is actually perceived rather than apparent motion.
The other thing in this chapter that I found interesting was looking at some of the reversible figure ground illustrations from Rubin, I have always liked looking at these sorts of images. Seeing how you can see two separate images, but can only see one at a time. reading about all of these images in the Gestalt section was interesting, seeing how our minds fill in the blanks, which is called closure, is pretty amazing.
I also enjoyed reading about the behavioral vs. geographic environment. The geographical environment being the world what it is, and the world as we perceive it being the behavioral environment. These are aspects we don’t think too much about but it is the behavioral environment that determines how we act. The distinction between physical reality and reality perceived differ, therefore making people in the same environment perceive things differently. This has happened many times with simple things in my life even with someone else thinking something happened different than I thought, even though we both were there and saw the same thing at the same time.
Least interesting in this chapter to me was just the basics of the early life and career of Kurt Lewin. I thought most of the info in this chapter was pretty interesting but this section was just the basics of his early life.
The most interesting person in this chapter to me was Lewin, and his argument over the study of individual cases of the “average child” because we so often study the children with disabilities or with above average ability but not average. I also found it interesting in his study of the effects of frustration on children by giving them the opportunity to play with an attractive toy and taking it away. There were a lot of Lewin’s studies that interested me.
We learned about Gestalt in earlier chapters and this chapter talked about a lot of the Gestalt-like ideas and people. I would like to learn more about Wertheimer.

I did not know what Gestalt psychology was really about until reading Chapter 9. I found the entire chapter full of interesting topics dealing with perception and imagery. One of these topics I particularly found intriguing was on apparent motion and the phi phenomenon by Max Wertheimer. I thought the example of the lights that flashed, appearing to move, was a really fascinating idea. Even though we understand that there are two lights flashing at different times, we still perceive one light. I think the brain’s perception of images is such an interesting topic because it compensates for the sensory information we do not receive in order to make a whole image even when there isn’t one. If I were a psychologist, this is the type of thing I would want to study.

The principles of perceptual organization, demonstrated in the reversible figure-ground illustrations, was another cool depiction of what our brain does for perception. I had a fun time looking at the different pictures and seeing the different images each one contains. I liked to read about why our minds do this in the three principles. My mind saw the objects the exact way that the book described I would according to Wertheimer.

I also enjoyed reading about the Von Restorff effect. I can definitely relate to this principle because I will tend to find something more interesting than other things in a large group of items, and I usually only remember that one thing. It’s not great for studying for tests unless the questions all have to do with the topic I found interesting. I thought they way they described Von Restorff’s study was pretty appealing because it stated that it showed that there is a “sharp figure against the background of nonsense syllables,” which is the perfect way to describe it. Everything else becomes nonsense, with the interesting item standing out.

I didn’t think psychophysical isomorphism was a very interesting concept because I didn’t really understand it that well, so I couldn’t connect with it.

I thought Kurt Lewin was a very interesting psychologist. His ideas on field theory and his formula was a very concrete way to explain an abstract idea. You could literally draw a diagram a particular person’s situation, and plug it into a formula. It made it more scientific and easy to understand for me. He also did so many different things for a wide range of areas of psychology. I think I would like to learn more about him because of his well roundedness in the field of psychology, and the very interesting contributions he made.

The idea most useful to the understanding of psychology’s history is Lewin’s studies on leadership styles. These types of studies have been replicated time and time again, and the different types have changed little over the years. It is still very important to learn about and continue developing this research.

The law of Pragnanz is very similar to Lloyd Morgan’s Canon of parsimony from chapter 5. Both view things in the most simple and most likely manner. I thought Morgan’s cannon was an interesting and true idea, and I think the same thing for the law of Pragnanz. I viewed the pictures from the chapter in their basic shapes put together, not in some complex figure with awkward angles.

The first thing that caught my eye was the concept of Gestaltqualitat, or form-quality. I play piano, so the idea of key changes maintaining the same melody was something I’m familiar with. I’d never thought anything of it, though. When the text compared it to the constant squareness of a square, it put the key changes in a new perspective.

Another interesting little tidbit was apparent motion and the flashing of lights. While I found the theory itself fascinating, what was most interesting came in the notes under the text:

‘If the interval between the flashing of the lights is too short… the perception is that both lights are on at the same time and neither is moving. If the interval is [too long], two separate flashing lights will be seen.’

It makes me think back to the days (as a kid) when I made mini “movies” by flipping pages of tiny cartoon drawings, or to how – if you stare at a hubcap or rim – it changes patterns and shapes, and sometimes appears to be rotating backward. That also went with the figure-ground theory and the principles of proximity and similarity. (The vase/faces, etc) Not to tack on too many things here, but I also thought closure was fascinating… the theory that our minds like neat, tidy little packages of information, so we “see” the simplest explanation.

Probably least interesting to me was Kohler’s ape research. I find human studies more fascinating than animal studies from which we infer human conclusions, so I think that might be part of it.

Thinking back to previous chapters regarding Germany and the prestigiousness and freedoms they gave their universities in regards to the field of psychology, it was fascinating to see how all this shifted around the rise of Hitler. Some of the most brilliant minds in ALL fields fled the country simply because they were being persecuted due to religion and ethnicity. Wertheimer was one such scientist. Probably more shocking was that Albert Einstein was “dismissed” from his university position during this era of turmoil.

While I thought Wertheimer was the most interesting of the gestalt psychologists, I’d like to learn more about Kohler, mainly because of his possible role in espionage as well as his stand against the Nazis (even though he was not Jewish) and the backlash he received. He seems like a very interesting person with incredible character, even if I didn’t find his ape research terribly exciting.

I think the most valuable take-away from this chapter would be the discussion of perception and apparent motion. It shows that – even with data supporting a theory – we still might have competing theories that seem just as valid and supported, as with the big question of WHY do we perceive flashing lights as one moving light? Is it that the moving light makes sense and is “closure” of sorts? Or is it related to the eye movements themselves and a fusion of lights?

The first thing I found interesting in this chapter was all the fun little drawings and "puzzles", if you will, designed to test the reader's perception. It seems silly to find such a thing interesting, but I've always enjoyed that kind of thing. I thought these illustrations added a lot to the chapter, and they were a great way to give us some examples of gestalt organizing principles.

I also really enjoyed Kohler's research on apes. I've always been fascinated by studies involving monkeys, just because I find the similarities between apes and humans pretty cool. I like how Kohler extended Thorndike's previous work in order to determine the insight of apes. Although his work was questioned and challenged, I thought it was great research in the long run.

The portion of the chapter about the Zeigarnik effect was definitely interesting as well. It is very true that memory is better for incomplete (versus complete) tasks. This effect definitely applies to everyday life in my case: Many college students tend to study and study for the final; then, once the test is over and done with, they forget all the information they once knew. I think this is a great example of the Zeigarnik effect at work.

This entire chapter was of very little interest to me. I have never found much enjoyment in reading about Gestalt psychology; I'd say that the studies on perception are probably the most boring ones for me to read about. Particularly, the sections on Wertheimer and Koffka were not interesting at all. I understand it is important to know the "firsts" in different parts of psychology; I just think this specific type of psychology doesn't appeal to me whatsoever.

I suppose I found Kohler's research to be the most interesting, if I had to choose. His experiments with monkeys were the most interesting thing to read about in this chapter. I think the most important thing in this chapter was just the introduction - it's important to know who "founded" the idea of Gestalt psychology and what it's all about.

This particular chapter can be related back to the topic of Thorndike and his puzzle boxes in the chapter on functionalism. Kohler used Thorndike as the basis for much of his research on apes, and he used Thorndike's puzzle box experimentation to move forward with his own work.

I would like to learn more about Hedwig von Restorff, since she was really only mentioned in passing. Also, the lack of women psychologists in history books is appalling, and I'd like to see more of that.

My favorite part of this chapter was Watson and his work with the psychology of advertising. My boyfriend is a marketing major, and I tell him all the time that advertising is a psychology business and he never believes me. Apparently he did not take our History and Systems class. Anywho – I loved how Watson used emotions to appeal to the market. You hear the saying “people will forget what you say but will always remember how you made them feel” and obviously this can be applied to advertising.

I waitressed for the first time this summer. After I came to know the menu rather well, I usually just memorized everyone’s order to save time. Therefore when I read about the
Zeigarnik Effect I could completely relate. It made me think back to this summer and realize how true this phenomenon really was. It makes complete sense; once you or the waiter has no need for the information, why remember it? Lewin took his observations further and conducted a study only to back up his findings even more than what the waiter already had.

Finally, Kohler’s studies with apes and views on problems was the third most interesting thing I read from the chapter. I think I found this interesting because I’m not quite sure if I agree. Kohler argued with Thorndike, and in my last blog I clearly stated how much I enjoyed reading about Thorndike and his animal studies. However, Kohler brings up good points saying its better to look at the problem as a whole and then fix it from there rather than just using the old fashioned trial and error technique. After reading this I’m honestly not for sure who I agree with, and that’s one reason why I love psychology. It challenges not only your thinking but your beliefs as well constantly.

The least interesting thing I read about was Watson and his work with rat mazes. This is unfortunate, considering I also think this is the best portion of the chapter that relates to other chapters. We have talked about animals and mazes several times throughout our book and it’s obvious that maze work with animals has been vital to our success of obtaining new knowledge in psychology. I remember reading about rat mazes a few chapters back and was not a huge fan of that section either. I know it’s so prissy of me but rats really are disgusting in my eyes, and reading about them gives me the heebie jeebies. I also didn’t like reading this chapter because it makes me question my beliefs (ha! After I just said I liked this…) on animal testing. I have very mixed feelings on the subject, and some things aren’t enjoyable to debate when they’re difficult topics like animal testing.

Though he was under both my number one favorite thing and least favorite thing, I’d like to learn more about Watson. He is a very popular psychologist who we hear lots about, but I’d like to learn even more. I love hearing about psychologist’s and there less popular researches and studies. I feel like learning about these studies helps improve their importance in eyes of students. Sometimes when we hear the same studies over and over we get bored of these psychologists and forget how important they are to the science of psychology. With that being said, I also think Watson is the most important applied psychologist talked about in the chapter. His work with advertising shows how not only important psychology is but how versatile the subject can be. Watson has made so many important contributions to psychology that the chapter describes very well. Though this is true, I’d still love to hear about all of the knitty gritty details of Watson’s work in psychology.

It was easy finding three things that I found interesting in this chapter. Gestalt psychology literally bends my mind in all sorts of directions. The mind is a crazy awesome thing.
I learned a lot that I did not know about gestalt psychology in this chapter.
The first thing I found interesting about this chapter was the "apparent motion" and "phi phenomenon" that Wertheimer named and studied. The idea that our mind makes it look like lights are being "trasnfered, or moved" when you turn lights on and off simultaneously in a short span of only 60 milliseconds. I have never heard of this study before, and when I first read it, it didn't really interest me too much until I started thinking about it more. This is what, I'm sure, our magic shows consist of. Magic shows are just one big Gestalt Psychology medley of tricks our mind is telling us to see!
Going on to the second thing I found most interesting about this chapter was the section on "Gestalt psychology and perception". Everything about this section was interesting to me. Reading about the figure-ground segregation that Edgar Rubin first described was extremely interesting. I have seen many figure-ground illustrations from being in psychology classes, as well as art classes.
The third thing I found most interesting about chapter 9 was the bit on behavioral versus geographic environments and psychophysical isomorphism. This BLOWS MY MIND. I am not sure if I completely understand it, or if it is even really respected or understood in our time today, but it sounds so interesting. I have always thought of how different people perceive different things and why this happens. It does make sense if two people, say a weather specialist and a artist were to look at the same beautiful sunset one evening, and have two completely different perceptions of that sunset. I would think the weather expert would have something to say about how the suns rays are beaming off the clouds.. (and give some science-y description of why it looks the way it does). But the artist would simply look at the beauty and want to paint it, or just awe in its beauty. The different perceptions on the same scene is what interests me. The mind is a wondrous thing.
I can honestly say that I was very much interested in this whole chapter. If I had to pick one thing that was of lesser interest to me it would have to be some of the earlier history of the psychologists. Like their upbringing and what not. But excuse me to contradict myself a bit, but I do find it important to know a little history about them, although it wasn't the most interesting part of this great chapter.
I found Kurt Koffka to be one of the most interesting. For a lot of reasons, but I just can't get out of my mind how interesting the geographical/behavioral environment is. This man, as well as Kohler were two extremely intelligent and creative men.
I would say that this whole chapter on gestalt psychology is very useful in understanding the history of psychology. These ideas have a lot to do with the human mind, well it has everything to do with the human mind, and how it works. Again, as I do say in most blogs, that psychology is so much about it's history because we still study the same things that the first psychologists studied, but with more knowledge. And without the great studies of all of these psychologists, we would not be where we are today.
Gestalt psychology relates directly to previous chapters very nicely. The psychologists I have been reading about have all tried finding new ways of studying the brain and how it works. Carr, with the mazes, Tichener and his first experiments. They all wanted to know more about how our brain functioned.
I would definitely be interested in learning more about Kurt Koffka. Him and Kohler were crazy interesting people, and I have only learned the beginning of their work here in this chapter. Gestalt psychology is so fascinating. I wish I had half the creativeness and intelligence these two had.

While reading chapter nine, the first thing that grabbed my attention was Wertheimer’s apparent motion. He concluded that “we perceive whole, meaningful figures, not elements that somehow combine to form wholes.” This is important in any situation to understand dealing with perception. Also in the section dealing with Wertheimer, I was interested in reading about after Hitler came into power in 1933, academic freedom in German universities quickly disappeared along with Jewish professors, including one of Wertheimer’s close friends, Albert Einstein. They were let go from their positions and forced to move. Wertheimer emigrated to the U.S., settling in New York City where he joined other German scientists at the New School of Social Research. Before passing away, Wertheimer had continued to work on perception and had extended on prior interests in problem solving. I think that Wertheimer sounded very dedicated and even when times were tough in Germany, he didn’t stop his studies or doing what he wanted to do. I admire that.

The second part of this chapter at stuck out to me was Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler. Koffka developed research in the perceptual topics of color contrast and auditory rhythm that eventually led to his acceptance of Gestalt psychology. I thought it was interesting that he influenced careers of several talented women psychologists, including Eleanor Gibson. Kohler, who I find to be the most interesting psychologist, had an intriguing opportunity come his way in some form of an invitation to direct research at a primate colony. This was done by the Prussian Academy of Sciences created at Tenerife, largest of the Canary Islands. There he came up with his most famous research, the studies of problem solving in apes. Unlike others, Kohler did not face this same type of threat since he was not Jewish. However, what was interesting is that he still emigrated in 1935 because he was shocked by the Nazi destruction of academia and he spoke out about it multiple times in multiple ways.

The third thing that I found interesting was that Kohler disagreed with Thorndike. We have previously heard of Thorndike back in chapter seven. He concluded that learning and problem solving was a process of trial and “accidental success,” with unsuccessful behaviors gradually being eliminated in favor of behaviors that worked. Kohler disagreed that problem solving was such a mechanical, step-by-step process. Instead, he believed that solutions to problems occur when individuals can view the entire problem field. He used the term insight, thinking that a survey over the whole arrangement was needed, which is not possible for animals and that is why he didn’t agree with Thorndike’s study. Kohler did not want to make the mistakes that Thorndike did, so he made sure to give his animals the entire field in front of them while also providing the elements needed to solve the problems. He did this by giving a chimpanzee two sticks too short to reach a banana and wanted to see if it could figure out to put the sticks together to get the banana, and it did. However, close reading reveals that Sultan (the chimpanzee) was in fact rather slow in figuring out the solution and had tried several times and failed. In the end, Sultan might have displayed some insight when eventually solving the problem, but he also behaved in a way that would make sense to Thorndike-through trial and error. I just think it is always interesting to see how other psychologists look to find ways to try and do studies differently and I like the debatable parts of it.

I did not find the sections dealing with behavioral versus geographic environments or psychophysical isomorphism to be interesting. I found these two sections to be dull and felt that they dragged on. I did not think that they were necessary to put in the book, or if they wanted to make a statement towards either case, I feel they could have just put a couple of sentences in another section. Overall, I guess I thought it was vital information and it kind of threw me off. Other than that, there were a lot of interesting things presented in this chapter.

Like other chapters, there is a lot of useful information presented in helping understand the history of psychology. The sections dealing with Gestalt psychology were extremely important because it gave us more insight on those who contributed. Learning about the different studies and theories are important because we need to know how Gestalt psychology grew and those who impacted it.

This chapter continued to build off of everything that we have previously learned in other chapters. We continue to learn about new psychologists that either build off of psychologists we have learned about or have worked on finding ways to do studies differently. A good example of this is Kohler and Thorndike. Both had specific ideas, just Kohler looked at Thorndike as a “what not to do.” In the end, it seems like we still do not have a clear answer and both of them make good points so maybe it isn’t either one or a combination of both. Studies like these help research continue to grow and build off of previous ideas which can only help in finding answers.

If I had to pick a psychologist to learn more about, it would be a toss-up between Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Kohler. I found each section dealing with them to be very interesting. If it came down to it, I might want to know more about Kohler because there wasn’t really much information given on him and from what I have read, he had some interesting ideas and I would like to learn more about them and where he began.

While reading chapter nine I was able to find things that I was interested in, and things which I could have cared less if I read it.
For starters I enjoyed reading about Kohler and his studies with chimps. Wolfgang was able to study chimps and notice that they were able to perform insight learning like humans. I enjoyed that he was able to take something like trial and error theory and bounce off of it to find more about animals and their ways of learning. He was able to publish a study about the mentality of the apes. I enjoyed reading about his studies and his relationship with Kurt Koffka. While in the laboratory together they worked with Max Wertheimer. They were able to establish a paper out of their experiments. This was called the Experimental Studies on Perception of Movement. However most of the findings came from Gestalt psychology.
Next I found the idea of figure ground; this is because you are able to find these images everywhere. The border seems to belong to the figure while the ground tends to extend beyond the figure. This perception is one of many and is very powerful. Some are unable to see both figures, but if one looks at it long enough they will always be able to find both pictures! I like that idea that sometimes one is able to see both pictures at once, for example the one in the book that is most distinctive is the Pittsburgh Zoo. This is very clear that it’s a lion and an ape while also being a tree. These pictures amaze me on so many levels and now to know more information about them is even better.
The third thing that I was interested in was the Von Restorff effect. Hedwig discover that if people leaned lists with a three digit embedded in a series of symbols, the number would most then often be recalled before the shape. She was then able to interpret that and then it was called Von Restorff effect. Information is able to recall if there is something that sticks out about it. This made me for some reason think about memory and how we remember things in pairs of threes. Also how much our brain can remember in chunks. But however that is something completely different!! 
I did not like reading about Max Wertheimer, I know that he was responsible for founding the Gestalt Phycology. I however did not find it that interesting. I find that he was very drawn out throughout the whole chapter. I did not like how long the chapter was either. I think this is because I enjoyed the readings from Behavior Modification. I wish that Lewis was talked about in every class however. I enjoyed his aspects with working with children and what he did for them. On terms of research!
I want to know more about Wolfgang and his studies with apes. I find children and monkeys so interesting. They are the most interesting mammals on this earth!!