Please read chapter 9. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
What were three (3) things from the chapter that you found interesting? Why were they interesting to you? What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
What topic would you like to learn more about? Why ?
What ideas did you have while reading the chapter?
Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
The first thing that I found interesting was the idea created by Koffka. I thought his ideas on geographical environment and behavioral environment were really interesting because of the fact that I think everyone has been in this type of situation before. Geographical environmental is the world as it is while the behavioral environment is the world as we perceive it. I thought his example of the guy riding his horse for hours across what he believed was a snowy plain was a good description because the guy then realizes that he was actually riding over a frozen lake and could have died easily. This showed that what we perceive isn’t always accurate.
The second thing that I found interesting was an idea created by Max Wertheimer. His idea on apparent motion was interesting. I have seen example of this before. People use this now as a type of trick to the mind. The example they give in this book is when two different lights are shined at a certain speed and when at that speed it looks like the circle is moving from side to side when in all truth it is two different circles being turned on and off. It is a type of illusion.
The third thing that I found interesting was taken from Wertheimer’s 1923 paper on “Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms.” The three gestalt organizing principles are proximity, similarity, and good continuation. I thought that these ideas were interesting because it is also an illusion type idea. Proximity is a tendency to perceive that objects in close proximity belong together; similarity is a tendency to perceive that objects resembling each other belong together, and good continuation is a tendency to organize perceptions in a smoothly flowing direction.
One thing that I wasn’t interested in was the research on apes. I have never really been interested in studies done with apes because I just haven’t. I don’t really have a good explanation for why I don’t like it. Kohler insight on apes just didn’t seem to get my attention. Insight is a sudden problem solution that occurred when the individual reorganized the elements of the problem situation into a new configuration.
I would like to learn more about the Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms. I think that it would be interesting to learn about what other ideas have come out of this. I am curious if in the more modern times it is more advanced or if the ideas have changed. I think that we do use these perceptual forms in illusions or to basically just trick our minds. While reading this chapter I was thinking about all of the weird pictures that I have seen that mess with my mind. For example you may have seen the elephant whose legs connect but don’t really connect. It is just mind blowing. I was just thinking about if this all came from the ideas of Perceptual Forms.
This chapter builds off of the previous chapters by looking at a different view to why people to or see what they do. It is going into a different idea than the other people before them. The Gestalt psychologists really stepped back and took on a different view compared to Titchenerian structuralism, and American behaviorism. I think one of the more important things to take from this chapter is the fact that they did decide to look at the phenomenological whole experiences of the people.
Terms: Koffka, geographical environment, behavioral environment, Kohler, insight, configuration, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, illusion, gestalt organizing principle, Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms, proximity, similarity, good continuation, Titchenerian structuralism, American behaviorism, Gestalt psychologists, phenomenological.
Though there were many interesting things in chapter 10 the first that I found very interesting was based on the principles of perceptual organization. Although some of the concepts were kind of difficult to understand it was very interesting to read about all of the different ways we organize what we see. First with the figure-ground theory we tend to separate whole figures from their backgrounds and after looking at the examples I can see how we do that, but after closely studying each picture and changing my focus it was easy to see the other aspect of the picture. After this they talked about the laws of organization in perceptual forms dealing with proximity, similarity, and good continuation. All of these breaking apart the whole picture and seeing the parts relates to Gestalt and these organizing principles are referred to as Pragnanz which explain one’s tendency to perceive things as reality.
Another topic I found interesting was Kohler and his ape studies. I have learned about this psychologist before, but I forgot much about him so it was interesting to brush up on him again and add even more knowledge to what I had already stored. When the book mentioned posing the problem of the bananas it all came back to me but I did not know that Kohler did not believe in Thorndike’s research since he thought they weren’t able to see the full picture. He is a Gestalt psychologist so he thinks that to find a solution one must break apart the large picture into several smaller ones. This he believed would result in learning through insight. Although Kohler thought he had successfully proved Thorndike wrong it is very controversial because the ape did not learn right away, he had many failed attempts first. While I read this I thought to myself that each psychologist in a way has some aspect of being right but I still wondered what more people believe and follow.
When I read further on I somewhat found an answer to the question I posed above. Robert Woodworth believed that these Gestalt psychologists were oversimplifying the ideas of their opponents. He thought that there could be some truth found in both of these psychologists’ ideas. Gestalt psychology didn’t adapt in America very well and this is very interesting to me since it was so big in Europe. A few reasons why include: the people who introduced the ideas in America went to small schools without graduate programs, 3 out of 4 died in their forties, and last it was very hard to convince American psychologists to adapt it rather they incorporated it into there already popular functional attitude. This made me wonder what the big hold up was, and why we were so stubborn. What are the pros and cons of this type of thinking, it seems to me that it is used quite a bit in America despite what this book says.
One topic I did not particularly enjoy reading about was the information on Wertheimer. I found that what he studied was very confusing and hard to understand. He was interested in the perceptual problem of apparent motion and basically he studied how we perceive 3 different rounded lights flashing in a dark room. They further explained the study but the whole time I tried picturing the experiment and could not piece together what was going on. The most interesting part of this section came when it started talking about how Hitler and what happened when he came to power.
This chapter built off of previous chapters in many ways. The biggest I thought was that again we are traveling back to Europe and seeing how their ideas migrated to America. A few new psychologists are introduced and we see a new branch of psychology but again we are dealing with visual processes, organization, and last Thorndike is brought up again and we see another study done on animals.
I believe the most important part of this chapter that will benefit as we continue to learn in this book will be the concept of Gestalt psychology. We see it’s origins in this chapter and learn what it is all about but I know it will be expanded in chapters to come and we will maybe even see how it is being used today.
One thing I would like to learn more about from this chapter would be Koffka’s research on the cognitive consequences of severe brain injuries in soldiers. I did a report on the history of world war one last year so it would be fun to incorporate my major into some of the things I learned and I am very interested in the world wars.
Terms: principles of perceptual organization, figure-ground, proximity, similarity, good continuation, Gestalt, Kohler, Koffka, Wertheimer, Pragnanz, insight, Thorndike, Woodworth
Chapter 9
The first thing that caught my attention right away was the research on apparent motion, also known as pi phenomenon according to researcher Wertherimer. I was not aware that Gestalt psychology was founded in 1910 to 1912 after the research on apparent motion was completed by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler. Apparent motion was describes by flashing two lights at certain intervals, however the observer only perceives one light in motion, which deems it difficult to view all components of parts.
The second part I felt held importance was that Kurt Koffka is known for introducing the Gestalt movement into America, through his publications and visits to the states. He was the first gestaltris to move to the United States permanently. He then obtained a job as a professor at Smith College, becoming a major theorist and extending gestalt ideas into the area of developmental psychology.
Another interesting fact was about Kohler’s Mentality of Apes which summarized his research on problem solving in animals. Throughout his research he reviewed and criticized several theories of Throndike. He criticized Thorndike’s puzzle boxes and this trial-and-error theory of animal learning. He argued that animals could shoe insight and solve problems quickly if they could perceive all elements of the situation. For example, the apes he researched over were able to solve problems by stacking boxes to retrieve frit suspended above them on the ceiling. This was fascinating, simply because he provided research to prove that animal’s brains are similar to ours as humans.
These facts were interesting simply because it is all new information to me. I have always found it fascinating to review another person’s research and see the outcome of their experiment; I feel that is why I am so interested in Kohler’s research of learning and problem solving in animals.
The parts I found least interesting were the overviews of the individuals throughout this chapter. I think that is most likely my least favorite part in all the chapters. I f I need to know the background of an individual it easy to access, but most of the material in this book I would not know without reading it specifically. I feel like the background and overviews are unnecessary, specifically for me of course.
This chapter builds off the previous chapters by recognizing individuals like Thorndike and his theories. Also, showing the challenges of his experiments towards new individuals just being introduced in this chapter.
I would like to learn more about Kohlers research on problem solving in animals. I feel this is important to know because the mind of certain species is not very different from our own. Knowing how animals learn, think, behave, and problem solve is important for knowing out own behaviors as well. This topic is something I am really eager to follow and learn more about.
Terminology : apparent motion, pi phenomenon, Gestalt psychology, Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler, developmental psychology, Mentality of Apes, Throndike, puzzle boxes, trial-and-error,
Reading chapter nine was a struggle for me, I didn't really find it that interesting honestly, and I didn't enjoy reading it that much. But, there were a couple things that were somewhat interesting to me I suppose. The first thing that I found interesting were the studies Lewin preformed. His studies were interesting, and also helped to form psychology into what it is today. I also found it interesting and somewhat ironic that Lewin lived in Iowa! The final thing that caught my attention was the section on field theory and life space. I thought the concept was interesting and also how the two meshed with each other. I can't pick one thing that was least interesting because the chapter as a whole didn't really keep my interest at all.
A topic in this chapter that I think will be useful in understanding psychology would be the studies Lewin preformed and also the field theory and life space. Because they describe Gestalt Psychology a little more, and will help in understanding psychology. This chapter builds on the previous one because it is informing us of another field of psychology. It is giving us more information on the history of psychology and educating us on another branch of it. I didn't really have any ideas while reading this chapter either, as I said before I didn't really like this chapter. It didn't keep my interest hardly at all, and I couldn't wait to be finished with it.
Terms: Gestalt Psychology, Lewin, Field Theory, Life Space, Psychology.
Chapter 9
While reading this chapter, one of the first things that really stood out to me was the idea of apparent motion. The first thing that made it interesting to me was the books description and example of it. They were successfully able to illustrate how the motion picture industry used this phenomenon quite a bit. We began to learn about a similar phenomenon in my art class. That which is called the Haptic Effect both involve the brain understanding and sensing something very different than what is actually happening. I really think this is so interesting. People put so much emphasis on our brains, and rightfully so, yet they can be easily tricked by something as simple as a flashing light or the hue of a color. I also thought the explanations of why this happened were very interesting. The thought that it could possibly be an unconscious shift was something I really wouldn't have thought of, simply because I associate illusions like this with anatomy, not the unconscious mind. Also, the thought that the name was later changed to phi phenomenon was something that I thought seemed necessary since the word "apparent" does imply uncertainty.
Something else that I found very interesting were the Gestalt Organizational principles such as figure- ground, proximity, similarity, good continuation, and Pragnanz. The figures in the text as examples I really enjoyed looking at. I'd seen a couple of them before but it was even more interesting to learn more about their origin and what they actually mean in terms of psychology. I also thought that it was interesting that the psychological standpoint tended to focus more on the apparent sight of the background, but there is also the question of what if someone first sees the background and then the foreground? A lot of questions popped up in my head about these examples and others that I've seen before. It also makes me wonder about how this stuff is used specifically in marketing and how it can be productive. I think that proximity,. similarity, and good continuation are all things that we really over-look on a daily basis. As an art major, I have more of an understanding of what goes in to pieces of art work and graphic design. Something so small can make such a huge interruption in the piece that it becomes entirely different. However, I had never thought about how the mind interprets something like continuation or proximity. Pragnanz was something very new to me and the word itself was something that I found really interesting and rather fun to say. However, I think this is something else very interesting and challenging for some artists, more specifically non-artists. Certain types of people, usually very uncreative, like to buy and create art that is very realistic and lacks any abstraction, this would remind me of a piece that is high is Pragnanz. I really think the vocabulary word is so interesting and had no idea that a name for this actually existed.
Another thing that I really enjoyed reading about was the Von Restorff Effect. I have always had a great interest in cognition and memory and think that it's really fascinating that specific things are more easily recalled than others. A simple stimulus in a set of information is going to be much more easily picked out than something randomly placed. It's also interesting how we can take that information to new levels. We can test it to see if certain stimuli are only applicable to specific people or specific situations.
Something that I found rather uninteresting was the idea of Field Theory. Although I agreed with Lewin's quote "there is nothing as practical as a good theory" I don't know if I fully agree with his field theory. I'm not sure if I fully understand what Lewin means when he talks about "forces" acting on a body. I understand the force which he calls the "life space" however I think that it's a unbelievable and unrealistic. I'm also not sure how you can focus enough on experimentation to equip it with internal or external validity.
I really think that this chapter as a whole was something very important that everyone needed to know about but if I had to pick something specific, I'd say that the basic ideas of Lewin were something that we should all know about. He really took Gestalt Psychology and pushed it into Social and Developmental Psychology. He also brought in a lot of cognitive ideas and forced other psychologists to think in different ways that focus more on life space and our external body. Although I don't know if I agree with all of his theories, I think it's important for us as psychology students to recognize his contributions and understand the Gestalt Psychology that categorizes them.
Chapter 9 related relatively well to chapter 8 mostly due to it's criteria and continued focus on psychology. The chapters were different in the sense that chapter 8 focused on applied psychology while chapter 9s focus was gestalt psychology. However, parts of chapter 9 really allowed us to see how gestalt psychology can be applied in other ares of psychology such as social and developmental.
If I had to pick a topic to learn more about it would be more about Lewin's Developmental Psychology contributions; specifically his work with differentiation. I really thought the idea was very interesting and I would really like to consider how much more involved the idea of "life space" becomes when children become an experiment with it. I also think that developmental psychology is very interesting when it comes to younger children verses older children. It's incredible what a couple of years can do for the brain and ways that it organizes itself. Due to my interest in that field and lack of understanding of Lewin's "life space", I really think that learning more about this work and experimentation would help me more fully understand his hypothesis.
My ideas while reading this chapter have been posted in the paragraphs they are associated with, since I had the ideas while writing those paragraphs.
Terms: apparent motion, phi phenomenon, Gestalt Organizational Principles, figure-ground, proximity, good continuation, Pragnanz, Von Restorff Effect, cognition, memory, stimulus, Field Theory, Lewin, life space, internal and external validity, Gestalt Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, differentiation.
The first interesting topic in chapter 9 was Max Wertheimer, he was considered to be one of the founders of Gestalt psychology. In Germany Wertheimer studied law and philosophy, eventually he developed an interest with apparent motion and studied the perception of how objects appear to move under certain circumstances. This technique during that time was even being used by the motion picture industry. It was interesting to learn how this “fusion” of movement could be perceived by alternating flashing lights at the exact moment. This was not an illusion but the result of one’s own perception. In Germany at the University of Frankfurt, Wertheimer researched apparent motion even further with the help of Wolfgang Kohler and Koffka. Wertheimer turned his research into a paper entitled, “Experimental Studies on the Perception of Movement” this was considered the foundation of what would become Gestalt psychology. Wertheimer proved the perception of motion was real and called it the phi phenomenon, where we see the whole picture not just a fragment at a time. However, unfortunately everything changed when Hitler took over in 1933; many Jewish professors and scientist were forced to flee the country. Once arriving in the United States, Wertheimer continued to study cognition and learning using the Gestalt approach while at the newly created school for Social Research.
The second interesting topic was the principles of organization. In 1915 psychologist Edgar Rubin explained that figure-ground was the one principle with the tendency to separate whole objects from a single background. Gestalt psychologists ended up using this new theory to support their ideas. Rubin’s understood how a figure can have detailed features and substance that helps it to stand out from the rest of the background. It was interesting to see how Rubin could create separate visual images within one whole picture. When it came to organizing principles, Wertheimer used proximity to explain the perception of how close together objects appear to be. Similarity is also an organizing principle which means that the proximity must remain consistent and appear to fit together. Another Gestalt organizing principle is the good continuation perception, it has to flow continuously together without any interruptions. Pragnanz is yet another principle where perceptions reflect the reality of our natural environment. All of these Gestalt organizing principles help to form the Law of Simplicity.
The third interesting topic was Kurt Lewin and how he expanded the Gestalt vision. Many psychologists today consider him to be a pioneer in developmental and social psychology. He was against discrimination and developed a passion for social justice. In Germany Lewin studied medicine, biology, and completed a doctorate on association, however when WWII began, Lewin enlisted in the military. He left for war as a private and came back as an officer who earned Germany’s Iron Cross for his courage and bravery. Lewin wrote about his experience in which he titled, “The War Landscape.” In the article he explained how, “The same objects in the environment can be phenomenologically different, as a function of whether they are part of the war landscape or the peace landscape.” In other words the environment can be perceived in different ways. Wars can change a peaceful and majestic land and turn it into a dangerous deadly trap. Lewin used empirical research to study his theories. Field theory came from his belief that in order to understand behavior then first have an understanding of the forces that provokes a person’s behavior. It was interesting to know that Lewin moved to Iowa and developed a research team at the Iowa Child Welfare Station. Through developmental psychology he continued observing and studying how frustration and regression reflects on children’s behavior. Lewin discovered how a child’s behavior can regress when frustrated and under stress, he called this dedifferentiation. As a social psychologist Lewin was interested in the impact prejudice and group influence have had on society, especially the consequences from different leadership styles. The different leadership styles were authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire. Authoritarian style was the most aggressive. Laissez-faire was unsupervised, unstructured, and indecisive. However, the democratic style was the most cohesiveness. Lewin concluded that a democratic style of leadership should be encouraged because it gave everyone an equal opportunity to work together.
This chapter relates to the previous chapter with showing how German psychologists expanded the way of thinking through a new perceptual insight called the Gestalt theory. It was a whole new theory that helped to create a different perception of reality.
It would be interesting to learn more about Wolfgang Kohler and his research on ape’s mental capabilities. Also like Hugo Munsterberg, Kohler was accused of being a German spy during WWI.
Terms: Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, phi phenomenon, Edgar Rubin, figure-ground, principle of proximity, principle of similarity, principle of good continuation, principle of pragnanz, Kurt Lewin, field theory, life space, dedifferentiation
All of what I found interesting was based on Lewin's work. The first thing I found interesting was his field theory. Field theory is understanding a persons behavior based on all parts of the environment acting on the person at a specific time. The field that people function in is life space. He determined that it wasn't just the physical environment that affects behavior but also how the individual perceives the environment. I found this interesting because I am more interested in what causes a persons behavior. Also, he is one of the first theorists to discover that all parts of the environment affect behavior. It makes me realize how much of this stuff that is already known is taken for granted. Today it is common knowledge that the environment and the way people see it will predict a persons behavior.
Another piece of this chapter I found interesting was how the Zeigarnik Effect fell into place. His system was only descriptive and was criticized for that. Lewin became interested in a waiter who could remember everything that people ordered without actually writing it down. As soon as the bill was paid the orders would be forgotten. Lewin explained this as the waiter's life space having a connection to the table while the bill was unpaid. This led Zeigarnik, a student of Lewin's, to perform research that would test his interpretation. She found that memory is better for incomplete instead of complete tasks, the Zeigarnik Effect. As a waitress I found this interesting because I could relate to it. What Lewin discovered is so true! I had never really thought about it until reading this. After a table leaves it is like all of the information disappears. Now I know why it happens.
The fact that Lewin, a distinguished theorist and psychologist, lived in Iowa is something else I found interesting. One of the studies he is better known for, "Frustration and Regression: An Experiment with Young Children" was developed in Iowa. During this study Lewin and his students found that although increased age produces differentiation, when stress occurs dedifferentiation might appear. Dedifferentiation is a temporary shift in the opposite direction, behavior regresses to less constructive patterns. This is interesting to me because, well there aren't very many times that someone hears of a significant study coming from Iowa or a theorist in Iowa.
A majority of this Gestalt Psychology chapter I did not like. However, the least interesting subject for me was the sections on Max Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler. I felt that the guy who wrote it needed to find a way to make it more intriguing. One thing I would like to learn more about is why stress causes dedifferentiation. I am also interested in finding out more about other research Lewin accomplished while working at the Iowa Child Welfare Station.
Terms: Max Wertheimer, Koffka, Kohler, Gestalt Psychology, Behavior, Differentiation, Dedifferentiation, Lewin, Zeigarnik Effect, Zeigarnik, Memory, Life Space, Field Theory
Starting off I found the topic of apparent motion and the study Max Wertheimer conducted on this topic to be very interesting. One reason being this visual perception study had already been done, multiple times with two different theories already looked at. But yet, he came in and brought about a new idea on why the light was being seen the way it was. The entire experiment just made me think of trial and error, they took the sensory stimulation theory and the illusory theory and basically just experimented with their own concepts until they could show that those were in fact wrong.
Something that really interested me because I have a personal interest in the subject was the information regarding Hitler and his banning of Jewish people from Germany. I had no idea Albert Einstein was Jewish, let alone that he migrated over to America, to be honesty I didn’t know half of the psychologist talked about had come from Germany until we started reading this chapter. Along with Einstein , Wertheimer was also Jewish and soon emigrated to America and ended up joining many German refugee-scientist in America.
Another interesting topic to me was, Kohler and his insight on Apes, at first I wasn’t really thinking in depth about his study because it had essentially been done before by Thorndike, but then as I read further into the explanation of what had actually happened, I became more intrigued. What I liked about this experiment was there was a visual reward for the ape and there were also tools within his premises that he could essentially use in order to obtain the bananas. After further reading I found out that the ape wasn’t actually able to quickly figure out how to put the two sticks together in order for him to be able to reach the bananas, but what really made me think was how the book says Kohler took the larger stick and pushed his finger into the open end, while the ape was watching; but yet wasn’t able to catch on to what that actually meant. To me, I get this, there has been so many times where I’ve had a teacher or fellow student explain a math problem ( I suck at math) and I absolutely do not get it no matter how many times they explain it, it’s like I’m just sitting there, looking at what they’re doing and my brain’s going “so what”. So this got me questioning how the brain works, because eventually my brain picked up or reworked the problem in a way that I understood and all the sudden I just got it instantly; even sometimes during the test in which going into it I still didn’t know what I was doing. I feel like this could have been what happened with the ape because he saw what Kohler did, but he didn’t understand what had been done until sometime later. To me it just reassures me that the brain works in many different ways and is really a prime example that seeing someone does something doesn’t mean you’re learning.
Something I didn’t particularly care for was Lewins field theory, or perhaps I just didn’t fully understand what I was reading or needed a better explanation. I think he’s right that there’s nothing as practical as a good theory, but I don’t know if I fully bought forces acting upon humans thing.
What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Perhaps this won’t be as useful as other information, but I personally really enjoy reading the biographies on the psychologists that are being talked about, for me in some instances it helps me make a personal connection, which ultimately grabs my attention. Like with Wertheimer, before I got to his section I kind of just skipped over his name because it was weird, but then I read he was from Prague, and I’m Czech so it grabbed my interest right away and made me want to continue reading.
How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? This chapter builds off of the other chapters in a way that the psychologists of this time era are looking at a different or new way of why people do what they do. Although we are still looking at how psychology came to America, and in this case it was due to Hitler’s rule in Germany, it’s coming to America in a different way and with a different outlook; but was still getting the questions regarding visual processes, organization, animal studies, and the reappearance of Thorndike.
I would like to learn more about Lewins developmental psychology and more information regarding differentiation and life space. I have always said and over my college years become more interested in children and the way they perceive and solve problems in everyday life; so I thought the section was a good insight. Plus, Lewin lived in Iowa; so that means he must have been brilliant-right.
Something I couldn’t help think about because I have taken history classes regarding the subject was Hitler’s reign, America gained many great scientist, which included Einstein and Wertheimer, because of Hitler’s control and although the results of Hitler’s rule were catastrophic, without them many things; including psychology and science today could be drastically different.
Terms: visual processes, organization, Thorndike, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, sensory stimulation, illusory, Kohler, Lewin, Developmental Psychology, differentiation, life space.
Starting off I found the topic of apparent motion and the study Max Wertheimer conducted on this topic to be very interesting. One reason being this visual perception study had already been done, multiple times with two different theories already looked at. But yet, he came in and brought about a new idea on why the light was being seen the way it was. The entire experiment just made me think of trial and error, they took the sensory stimulation theory and the illusory theory and basically just experimented with their own concepts until they could show that those were in fact wrong.
Something that really interested me because I have a personal interest in the subject was the information regarding Hitler and his banning of Jewish people from Germany. I had no idea Albert Einstein was Jewish, let alone that he migrated over to America, to be honesty I didn’t know half of the psychologist talked about had come from Germany until we started reading this chapter. Along with Einstein , Wertheimer was also Jewish and soon emigrated to America and ended up joining many German refugee-scientist in America.
Another interesting topic to me was, Kohler and his insight on Apes, at first I wasn’t really thinking in depth about his study because it had essentially been done before by Thorndike, but then as I read further into the explanation of what had actually happened, I became more intrigued. What I liked about this experiment was there was a visual reward for the ape and there were also tools within his premises that he could essentially use in order to obtain the bananas. After further reading I found out that the ape wasn’t actually able to quickly figure out how to put the two sticks together in order for him to be able to reach the bananas, but what really made me think was how the book says Kohler took the larger stick and pushed his finger into the open end, while the ape was watching; but yet wasn’t able to catch on to what that actually meant. To me, I get this, there has been so many times where I’ve had a teacher or fellow student explain a math problem ( I suck at math) and I absolutely do not get it no matter how many times they explain it, it’s like I’m just sitting there, looking at what they’re doing and my brain’s going “so what”. So this got me questioning how the brain works, because eventually my brain picked up or reworked the problem in a way that I understood and all the sudden I just got it instantly; even sometimes during the test in which going into it I still didn’t know what I was doing. I feel like this could have been what happened with the ape because he saw what Kohler did, but he didn’t understand what had been done until sometime later. To me it just reassures me that the brain works in many different ways and is really a prime example that seeing someone does something doesn’t mean you’re learning.
Something I didn’t particularly care for was Lewins field theory, or perhaps I just didn’t fully understand what I was reading or needed a better explanation. I think he’s right that there’s nothing as practical as a good theory, but I don’t know if I fully bought forces acting upon humans thing.
What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Perhaps this won’t be as useful as other information, but I personally really enjoy reading the biographies on the psychologists that are being talked about, for me in some instances it helps me make a personal connection, which ultimately grabs my attention. Like with Wertheimer, before I got to his section I kind of just skipped over his name because it was weird, but then I read he was from Prague, and I’m Czech so it grabbed my interest right away and made me want to continue reading.
This chapter builds off of the other chapters in a way that the psychologists of this time era are looking at a different or new way of why people do what they do. Although we are still looking at how psychology came to America, and in this case it was due to Hitler’s rule in Germany, it’s coming to America in a different way and with a different outlook; but was still getting the questions regarding visual processes, organization, animal studies, and the reappearance of Thorndike.
I would like to learn more about Lewins developmental psychology and more information regarding differentiation and life space. I have always said and over my college years become more interested in children and the way they perceive and solve problems in everyday life; so I thought the section was a good insight. Plus, Lewin lived in Iowa; so that means he must have been brilliant-right.
Something I couldn’t help think about because I have taken history classes regarding the subject was Hitler’s reign, America gained many great scientist, which included Einstein and Wertheimer, because of Hitler’s control and although the results of Hitler’s rule were catastrophic, without them many things; including psychology andscience today could be drastically different.
Terms: visual processes, organization, Thorndike, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, sensory stimulation, illusory, Kohler, Lewin, Developmental Psychology, differentiation, life space.
The first thing that interested me about this chapter was the section on apparent motion. This is the phenomenon where separate sensory events occur, but appear as one event. This is what occurs when you watch a movie. You see many different lights and pictures, but assume they are one. This was shown by flashing two lights. At the right speed the two lights seem to be one light moving back and forth. Max Wertheimer wondered how these events occurred. There seemed to be two views on this. The first was that as the two lights move, the eyes shift along with the picture. This would create a "fusion" that created the perception of movement. The second idea was that people unconsciously make an inference that the light has moved. Both these theories were disproved and Wertheimer renamed apparent movement as the phi phenomenon.
I like this section because the topic of perception really interests me. I loved the books as a kid where you would focus your eyes and see one thing, and then when you unfocus them you can see something else. It also liked the fact that both of the valid theories at the time as to why this happens were proven wrong. It shows that just because you have an explanation for something doesn't mean that it is the right answer.
The second section I liked was the one on Principles of Perceptual Organization. This section covered many different phenomena that occur with perception. The first one covered was figure-ground segregation. When we look at a drawing, we can instinctively tell which part is supposed to be in the foreground and which part is the background. One thing that helps us distinguish these parts is a border than tends to surround the image we put in the foreground. Also, if there is a pattern that seems to flow together we tend to place that in the background of a picture. Another principle talked about is the idea of proximity. When we see a sequence of dots, for example, we believe that the ones that are closest to each other belong together. We also group things by similarity, believing that things that look the same or similar belong together. A third principle is good continuation. This is where we like to make things flow smoothly. We want all of these things to seem like they are part of reality. This is part of the law of simplicity, or Pragnanz.
I liked this section because, as I said before, I really love dealing with perception. When I was reading this section I was also looking at the pictures that went along to illustrate the points. The book showed several pictures where the foreground and background can be changed, etc. I wonder what it is in the mind that allows us the ability to determine what is out front. I also wonder how people first figured out that we do this, because it is really pretty subconscious.
The last section I am talking about is the one on Kohler and the apes. Wolfgang Kohler was interested in Thorndike's puzzle box experiment. Kohler believed that Thorndike's idea of the cats using trial and error was wrong. He took issue with the fact that, in the puzzle box, the cats were unable to see the whole mechanism that opened the box. Kohler believed that if the cats were able to see the whole mechanism, that they might be better able to understand it and would not need to use trial and error to make their way out of the box. Kohler believed the animals needed insight into the process. Kohler went to Tenerife Island to deal with apes. During Kohler's research with apes, it appeared that, as well as using some insight, the animals also used trial and error to come up with a solution.
I enjoyed this section because it built of the puzzle boxes, which I also liked. I am an animal lover and it is always interesting for me to try to figure out what goes on inside the minds of animals. The fact that the cats in the puzzle box were not able to see the whole mechanism that they were dealing with also intrigued me. I am not sure if cats are as intelligent as apes, but I believe that seeing the whole picture often helps you figure out a solution.
I really found all of the sections in this chapter interesting, but I guess the one I was least excited by was the section on Kurt Lewin. Lewin was born in Prussia at the end of the 19th century. He went to university in Berlin, and studied medicine and biology. Lewin then received a doctorate under Carl Stumpf. Lewin graduated just as World War I started, and enlisted in the German army. While recovering from wounds received in battle he wrote The War Landscape, which led to many of his later ideas. Lewin believed that the same object could be used very differently depending on the environment. After the war Lewin returned to Berlin as an instructor. As hatred for Jewish people increased in Germany, Lewin moved to the United States. Lewin eventually worked for the Child Welfare Research Station in Iowa.
While this section did interest me, It didn't talk much about the perception issue that I found intriguing throughout this chapter. I prefer reading about theories and experiments, rather than biographies.
I think one thing I learned in this chapter that will help with my understanding of psychology was one of the major factors that moved German psychologists to the United States. During this time there were wars and social issues that made these psychologists want to move. Many of the leaders in psychology were Jewish, and the culture in Germany at this time was not accepting of Jews. There were also multiple wars going on at this time, and the United States seemed to be a safer place to live. I didn't realize before how these outside factors led to psychology moving more to the US.
I would like to learn more about perception as a whole. I feel like there were many other discoveries related to perception that have not been covered in the book. I would also like to learn about other experiments that were done at this time.
While reading this chapter I thought a lot about what life was probably like in Germany at this time. I also thought about the experiences I have had with perception in my life.
terms:
apparent motion, Wertheimer, phi phenomenon, principles of perceptual organization, figure-ground segregation, proximity, similarity, good continuation, law of simplicity, pragnanz, Kohler, Thorndike, puzzle box, insight, trial and error, Lewin, Stumf, The War Lanscape
Chapter 9 was a slower read than the previous chapters. Since freshman year I have heard/learned tidbits about Gestalt Psychology but I've never really fully grasped the concept. I thought this chapter would help clear up my confusion but I am still hazy on it. Fortunately, however, the chapter started off at its slowest and climbed to mediocre interest level.
The chapter starts off with a piece about the origins and early development of gestalt psychology and an introduction to Max Wetheimer. These are the sections that I found to be of least interest to me. What I got from this bit is that the gestalts are in controversy about which is better, the sum or the sum of its parts? I learned a new term--form quality. This term was coined by Christian Von Ehrenfels and means, as outlined in our textbook, that..."there are certain qualities of experience ....the go beyond individual sensory elements and persist even if the elements are altered." This concept was confusing to me yet a little interesting as I looked at with a more philosophical view.
Although most of the reading pertaining to Max Wertheimer was hard for me to get through, I did find his work with phi phenomenon intriguing. I also admired his feelings toward Hitler and the Nazis, which ultimately forced him to move to the United States. I then also wondered about current scholars that I may or may not know of and what worldwide problems may be causing them to relocate or guard their ideas, if any. Phi phenomenon was Wetheimer's answer to apparent motion. To him, "apparent" meant that the motion was not really perceived although it was clear to Wertheimer, and any observer, that it is perceived.
Moving on, I really enjoyed the CLOSE-UP about Wolfgang Kohler's ape research and is suspected espionage. During WWI, Kohler researched on the Canary Island of Tenerife. in 1975, a researcher and psychologist by the name of Ronald Ley went to Tenerife to learn more about Kohler. There he met Kohler's animal handler and caretaker, who was by then 87 years old. Despite his age, the caretaker was able to provided much insight into the work of Kohler. Kohler's research provided psychology with vast information about the mental ability of apes but unlike most psychologists of that time and still today, Kohler was a bit detached from his work. Although he observed his apes daily, he rarely went into the cages with them and he NEVER went alone. As for the espionage accounts, Kohler discredited their claims but it is still not clear of what is true
The last thing in this chapter that I found to be particularly interesting was the bit about the Zeigarnik Effect. This phenomenon speaks to the belief that memory is better for incomplete rather than today tasks. This phenomenon was coined by one of Kurt Lewin's pupils, Bluma Zeigarnik. He was inspired to research this phenomenon after being intrigued by an habitual waitress who could remember orders without having to write it down but once the order was paid for, she would forget. While reading this, I thought about how my memory works for things such as exams and assignments and it made sense to me. At the beginning of each week, I write down all the assignments and tests that I will complete before the week is over. I cross each one off as I go. On Mondays-Wednesdays, I am constantly reminding myself of what I have to do and it seems to never escape my brain. However, once I cross them off my list, I can barely remember the preoccupation that I had prior to completing the assignments.
Although this chapter was more difficult for me to get through and stay interested in, I am glad I finished it. In terms of better understanding the history of psychology, I now understand that gestalt psychology is not a completely different form of psychology but rather another view to add into the wide spectrum of psychology. I noticed that this chapter, more than previous chapters, made time references connecting the new information I was reading to past information of earlier chapters. This made it easier to think in the proper time context.
After reading this chapter, I would like to look up gestalt psychology online to see if it can clear up some of my confusion. I would also like to learn more about Kohler's first wife, Thekla, who helped with the ape research.
Terms used: form quality, gestalt psychology, Wolfgang Kohler, Max Wertheimer, Zeigarnik effect, phi phenomenon, apparent motion, observer, memory.
The things I found interesting in this chapter was that about Wolfgang Kohler and his study in the learning and problem solving in apes. That then lead me to read about the many that believed he was working for the German’s as a spy while on Canary Island and committing espionage.
While reading I was kind of intrigued to find out that Kohler was the youngest of the three main Germans to establish the gestalt movement, but yet was the best-known of the three gestalist for his deliberate promotion of ideas in America. Later was the only one to be elected the president of the APA. Before that came his opportunity to research at a primate colony for the Prussian Academy of Science at Tenerife. During this whole movement I found it interesting to know that it all happened around and during WWI, which had a big impact on Kohler at the time. Almost marooning him and his family on the island with his apes. It was also during this time he was thought to be a German spy, regardless, he made his reputation as a scientist those few years on the island.
So to get a better look at if this spy stuff was true or not I read the Close-Up section to find out. According to a psychologist by the name of Ronald Ley, Kohler wasn’t only interested in just the apes. Traveling back to the location of Kohler’s island years Ley came across two of Kohler’s animals handlers and caretaker, 87-year-old Manuel Gonzalez and Garcia. To Ley’s surprise the two could recall the research station and the behaviors of the apes. Saying that Kohler’s main ape, Sultan, almost bit a finger off along with scars from other incidents with the apes. They assured Ley that along with working with the animals and observing them from outside the cage. Kohler was a German spy. Like any other story over the years Ley found no hard evidence that Kohler might have been a spy. In his search he found out details about Kohler’s years on the island, more so that of the role his wife, Thekla, played. She drew profile sketches of the apes and filmed the research, all while raising two kids.
It wasn’t until 1935 that Kohler emigrated to America, one of the last of the three to do so. When back in war-ravaged Germany he wasn’t subjected to the Jewish threat. Nevertheless, Kohler hated the Nazi and spoke out against them in a public matter. Something I found bold and awesome, no one would think to do that, not during the reign of Hitler. Publishing articles of anti-Nazi against the dismissal of Jewish professors and the destruction of academia’s. Not till Nazi sympathizers started to monitor his lectures and eventually trying to have him sign a loyalty oath to Hitler did he leave Germany.
Another thing I found to be interesting and still do even before reading the history on it, is that of perceptual organization. When Wertheimer launched the gestalt movement, perception became an important part in determining how phenomena’s are organized into a whole; something Wertheimer called gestalt organizing principles. One of the basic perceptions that provides a foundation for all object perception is the tendency to separate wholes figures from their background known as figure-ground. Then there was proximity; the tendency to perceive objects that are close in proximity belong together. If proximity is constant then stimuli can be organized according to similarity, the tendency to perceive that objects resembling each other belong together. A third principle to follow is that of good continuation, we tend to organize our perceptions in smoothly flowing directions. If we were to look at what all of these have in common we would come up with what gestaltists call Pragnanz, roughly translating into “good figure”. Sometimes we encounter figures that are incomplete and guess about the nature of what is being perceived, in other words we construct a “good figure” by filling in the gaps, this is known as closure.
The one thing I found to be un-interesting was no so much the material but how much material there was on Lewin. His life and career seemed almost the same as any other psychologist, birth date, college, then another college and eventually a degree in some field. All of which leads to a job either teaching or conducting one’s own study. Even that he went from a expanding the gestalt vision to being a theorist and then to a developmental psychologist and so on, covering almost every field at the time. I just found it a little tedious. Over all I found this whole chapter to important in the study of the history of psychology, there was a lot of good information and studies that are still used today. You can really see how this chapter builds off the previous ones in the field of evolution to a different method of looking at cognition and behavior, rather than brake down experiences into its basic elements, it’s better to look at it from a whole point of view.
Terms: gestalt, Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, APA, Prussian Academy of Sciences, Canary Island, Tenerife, Ronald Ley, Manuel Gonzalez and Garcia, Thekla, Sultan, gestalt organization principle, figure-ground, proximity, similarity, good continuation, Pragnanz, closure
Chapter 10 was interesting to read about to say the least. It had been awhile since our last blog, so i was eager to start back up and get reading. There were a couple things that I found interesting while reading, and something that I did not find as interesting. One of the things that I liked while reading was the part on principles of perception organizations. It is a mouth full, but this section talked about early gestalt psychology. Including some experiments that I have seen before, but have never known the orientation of them, so now I do. Another thing that I found interesting while reading this chapter was the section on kohler and his ape sultan. This was probably the most interesting thing I read during the chapter. I am a sucker for a good experiment, and the one he conducted on sultan was cool. The last thing that I found interesting to read about was the field theory that Lewin founded. The main point about his theory was the life space aspect. Very interesting to read about because to me it sounds like something a hippie would think of during a recreational period. There was a couple things that I did not find the most interesting to read about, and one of those was the section on lewin's life. I like to do my topical blogs on the a section like that so I skipped it just in case I did my topical blog on Lewin. So I guess I can not say that I did not like it, I just did not read it. I will talk about more of the topics I mentioned along with how I feel this chapter relates to the last, how the chapter helped me understand the history of psychology, what I want to learn more about, and the conclude with some thoughts I had while reading this chapter.
Wertheimer is a very unique last name, so I will be saying "he" a lot. Anyway, this section was on the principles of perceptual psychology like I mentioned earlier. Basically what I got from the section was that we catergorize objects into shapes that distinquish themselves from other objects. He coined the phrase figure-ground to explain this brains way of functioning. Some of the ways that he could explain this was by doing experiments that had a reversable effect to them. I had seen some of these on the internet and never thought that they had much importance. Turns out I was wrong and they are a product of an experiment conducted years ago. I guess you learn something everyday. He also made up three principles for gestalt organization. The first principle he came up with by doing an experiment with dots. We catergorize objects that are in proximity with each other. The experiment showed dots that were paired with each other. He thought that we catergorized them because they were close to each other, and we automatically look at them this way, and never consider them to be individual dots. This was very interesting to me because I never would have thought of this if I had not read about it. The second principle was similarity. This principle was another product of the dot experiment. This principle states that we catergorize the dots into perfect rows and columns for better organization. This was interesting to me because once again I would have never thought of this in such a way. The last principle that he founded was the good continuation principle. This principle was a product of a wavy line experiment that he did. The principle states that we catergorize objects into free flowing lines. Instead of saying that the lines break, we percieve them as free flowing. I was very interested with this section, but it was not my favorite. The next section that I wil talk about will be kohler and his ape sultan. This was very interesting to read about , and I found my concentration was best during this part.
Kohler was reported and then wrote a book about the mentality of apes. He set out to disprove Thorndike how we read about in a pervious chapter. Kohler did not believe that we find things out through trial and area, but rather that we insight to solve a problem. This was interesting to read about because now I got a look at psychologists trying to prove each other wrong. Kuhler conducted an experiment with his pet apr sultan. Kuhler put a banana outside of his cage and two sticks that were different sizes that could not reach the banana by themselves. Kuhler wanted to see if the ape would use insight to use all his knowledge to put the sticks together and grab the banana. When I was reading this I thought there was no way that the ape would figure out how to put the sticks together because it is a high level thinking process for a chimp. Turns out that sultan put the sticks together and reached for the banana. The experiment was a success in Kuhlers eyes, but thorndike thought differently. Thorndike thought that the experiment had some flaws to it, and it did. Turns out that Kuhler did not report all the attempts that sultan took to figure out how to retrieve the banana. It took him several attempts, and many different trials before he thought to put the sticks together to grab the banana. Thus, thorndikes theory held true, and we learn and problem solve through trial and error. This was a very interesting section to me because it was two scientists going at it in an attempt to discover knowledge. very cool.
The last thing that I liked about the chapter was the field theory section and Lewin . This was interesting to read about because it was very unconventional. He described this field theory by coining the phrase life space. Life space is the particular field in which a person operates. LIke I said earlier it sounds like something a hippie would come up with. He even created a formula, but I do not care about formulas, so i glanced at it and kept running. Just kidding, but like we talk about in class, formulas are a way in which we make psychology a science. Field theory is derived from topology which is a geometrical way of looking at the same thing. Lewin stated that when all things are balance (environmental and behavioral factors) you are then in a state of equillibrium. The example that the book gave was the cookie jar model. very hard to understand, but what I got from it was that the foriegn hull is everything outside of the life space that influenced you. The cookies are the valances (anything good), and vectors (arrows that point to your goal). It was confusing, but I somewhat understood the concept. Something that I would like to talk more about in class.
One thing that I did not like about the chapter was the section on Lewins life. I did not find this section very interesting because he did not have the most interesting life. His ideas were interesting to read about, but other than that I skimmed through this section, and read on to the more important stuff. I usually do my topical blogs on the people that I find interesting within the chapter because I like to learn about the person who discovered important theories. Lewins life did not grab my attention, and I do not mean to bash his life, but I would rather read about and do a topical blog on Kohler because I found what he did in his life a lot more interesting to read about.
This chapter helped me in the understanding of the history of psychology because I got to read about some more people who were a big influence. There were some names in this chapter that were not the biggest, but their ideas were interesting. The so called little guys might not get all the publicity, but their ideas usually more interesting. Besides that, this chapter was mainly about gestalt psychology. This was important to psychology because it is just another branch in an ever growing field. When I first started reading this book psychology was so small, and now there are such things as gestalt psychology which helps to understand where some aspects of psychology come from. I think with the field growing it brings in new theories that are important to this science.
When I talk about how this chapter builds off the other ones I always got back to how psychologists build of each other, and I will again. I liked the build off that the book portrayed between thorndike and Kohler. The time periods between psychologists had been so far and in between because the field was so small, but now everyone sees what the other guy is doing the next day. Kuhler did not believe that we learn through the process of trail and error, so Kuhler set out to prove him wrong. Turns out that Thorndike was right and Kuhlers insight theory was a bust. I think that this is interesting because I think it bettes the field. When things are challenged it makes everyone better. So, to me the field is going to continue to grow because these psychologists are making each other by challenging themselves and their peers ideas.
Something that I would want to learn more about would be the Kuhler ape experiment. Actually, I would just like to watch the video of the experiment because I find this idea interesting. KUhler did not think that we learned through trial and error, so he created this experiment to see of his insight theory worked. I would like to learn more about the experiment and its flaws that were not pointed out in the book. To me it seems that Kuhler was a cheat and swayed the results to prove that his theory was true. I wonder if there is an article on the internet somewhere that talks about him or his experiments. Also, if he is a relevant guy in the field besides this chapter.
Some thoughts that I had while reading the chapter mainly had to do with the monkey experiment. While reading I just pictured being there the time of the experiment and watching this ape figure out something that is comlpex for an ape and do it. Some of these experiments that we have read about are really interesting to read about, and probably my favorite part about reading some of these chapters. Also while I was reading I thought about the earlier chapter when the guy presented his idea on the spirits in the body. Lewins idea was kind of weird like that, and it made me think about how he presented his idea to the general public without them thinking that he was a little off.
Terms: gestalt, Wertheimer, perceptual organization, figure-ground, proximity, similarity, good continuation, insight, sultan, geographical environment, behavioral environment, kohler. lewin, field theory, life space, foreign hull, valence, vector, equilibrium, topology
I just realized that I accidentally read Chapter 9 last week and skipped Chapter 8. So I will be last weeks' assignment and writing about Chapter 8 now:
I thought it was interesting reading about Henry Goddard and his ideas of mental age. We use many words in the English language to refer to those who are less-than-intelligent. It's fascinating to find the origin of these words and how they became popularized on a colloquial level. For example, idiots are those who have a mental age or one or two, imbeciles have a mental age between three seven, and morons have a mental age between eight and twelve. These are terms we may use on a day to day basis but have no real understanding of their origin. In addition to the scientific findings psychologists have made, it's refreshing to see that they have made a number of everyday findings that we may overlook.
One thing that I thought was really interesting was Cattell's article on inductivism. I particularly liked the quote: "Psychology cannot attain the certainty and exactness of the physical sciences until it rests on a foundation of experiment and measurement." The main reason I thought this was interesting is because this is the exact philosophy we have today toward all sciences-- especially those of the social variety. In the past, people haven't taken psychology very seriously because our theories have lacked scientific evidence. However, it's important to remember that this was all during the earliest stages of the field and that a lot has changed since then. Cattell is ahead of his time with this quote, as measurement has become an integral part of psychology and the foundation by which we call it a science.
The last thing I found to be interesting was the section on Leta Hollingsworth. She attacked the underlying logic of the variability hypothesis with a number of reasons. As a feminist, I found this to be particularly poignant. She had to have had a lot of courage to step up and attack this principle. Also related, Hollingsworth dissertation was entitled: “Functional periodicity: An experimental study of the mental and motor abilities of women during menstruation”. In her experiment, she found that women did not experience changes in performance during menstruation, which was breaking news for her time.
There was nothing in this chapter that was uninteresting. As always, it's hard to stay focused if trying to read the entire chapter in one sitting. But content-wise, it was all interesting. I really enjoyed reading about the applications that have come out of psychology, as many still think psychology is mostly just a field in academia. I think all these things are *useful* to remember by the very nature that they are findings that can be applied. It's important for psychology majors to keep this information in close reach to rekindle an interest in the field if they forget why they liked the field in the first place. Because we have so many applications, it's impossible to get bored with the entire subject of psychology.
I think this also shows how, at this point in the book, we have built off of the theoretical standings of psychology and have started to make tangible progress. Before, we were only talking about psychology in theory, but once we start getting into applied psychology, we can talk about it in practice and in effect.
I'd be interested in doing more research in intelligence testing. To date, there is still great controversy surrounding the notion of the construct, let alone the best methods to go about measuring it.
I am surprised that I rather enjoyed the section on Industrial psychology. I always thought that this might be the *only* subfield of psychology where I lack interest. I was pleasantly surprised, as I found that a lot more than "business" goes into the field. I'd also be interested in looking more into industrial/organizational psychology for research.
Terms used: Henry Goddard, mental age, idiots, imbeciles, morons, Cattell, inductivism, Leta Hollingsworth, variability hypothesis, functional periodicity, construct, intelligence testing, industrial psychology
The first thing I found really interesting about this chapter was the Zeigarnik effect. I found the results of that experiment to be really surprising. The study they conducted was well thought out. I think it is so crazy that they remember the interrupted tasks better. When you think about it though it makes sense because that adds another element into that tasks. You remember it because you remember what you were doing before you were being interrupted. This adds content to the tasks that are otherwise boring. I think the idea of tension with an unpaid bill makes sense to me. It almost creates a sort of anxiety which goes into the notion of emotion based memory. You remember things better when you are in a high state of emotion.
The second thing I found really interesting were the ideals of behavioral and geographic environments. I really like the folklore story that the man dropped dead when the two did not match. This probably never happened but it would cause great anxiety when you realize that you perceived something wrong. It is kind of when you run a right light or a stop sign without realizing you did and your passenger points it out. You experience an intense tension/anxiety. You keep thinking what could of happened like a collision or a ticket. Another thing is that you cannot believe that you actually got away with it! This theory can be applied to so many life situations. I am positive we have all experienced this sort of tension at some point in our lives.
I also really like the ideas of psychophysical isomorphism. This is another concept that we experience a lot in everyday life but never really acknowledge it or realize it. As soon as you read about the ideas such as this one, you immediately start thinking of situations that it has happened in your life. This one interested me the most because it has to do a lot with the brain and how it perceives situations. They may seem topographically but functionally they are the same thing. The book gives the map and terrain example. They both have the same structure. It is harder to think of examples in this concept because it has to do with the brain, something we cannot see.
I really did not like the origins and early development section. I am more of a concepts learner. The set up just seems really boring to me. As soon as we started to get into the concepts, such as the ones above, I found everything in the chapter to be really interesting. They are all examples of everyday situations.
This chapter did a great job on expanding on cognitive theories and behaviors and the way our brain works. The concepts attempt to explain way situations and tensions occur in our everyday lives. It also did a great job in explaining perception and how our brain may perceive things differently than they really are. This is interesting to me because research in these areas can lead to a safer everyday life. I would really like to learn more about the concepts involving perception. I would like to look a little bit into each and pick one to learn more about. I really like the concept of behavioral and geographic environments. This really interests me.
The main ideas I had while reading this chapter were how perception is so crazy. We don't even realize these things because we are so used to it. If we did not do experiments on perception we would have no clue that we were perceiving them differently than what they were. Like I said, more research in perception could learn to safer everyday tasks.
terms: Zeigarnik effect, perception, functionally, topography, environments, behavioral environments, geographic environment, psychophysical isomorphism, orgin, perceiving, tension, anxiety, theory
After reading Chapter 9 the first thing that I liked was the section on the principles of perceptual organization. In particular I enjoyed reading about the figure-ground segregation that was earlier described by Edgar Rubin. I found this interesting because we seemed to deal with these a lot when we were younger and in elementary school our teachers would give it to us as something to do. It was interesting to see how it went into a little more detail and neat how we can only focus one thing into picture and the other into the background at a time, it’s impossible to do both at the same time.
The second thing that I found interesting in this chapter was the Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms. The part about this that I found interesting again was a little bit of background information on why we perceive things the way we do and how it helps us to make the things around us easier and less confusing to understand. It’s cool how we put things together in proximity, similarities, and good continuation all make our lives easier to perceive what we have around us.
The final thing that I found interesting in this chapter was what the gestaltists called Pragnanz. Pragnanz is the basic tendency of us as humans to mirror reality as closely as possible and help us to promote the most reasonable guess as to what something is that we are seeing. All of these things were just interesting to me because it’s really weird to think about how our mind does all of these little things for us that we aren’t aware of and they happen so fast to make our lives easier to manage.
The thing that I didn’t like about this chapter would have been nothing really. So instead I’m just going to say another thing that I found interesting about this chapter because nothing really rubbed me the wrong way here. The other thing that I found interesting about this chapter was the work by Wolfgang Kohler and his work with apes. The thing I found interesting was how they found insight in the apes and how they could perceive the entire field of the problem and reach food by combining two bamboo sticks and solving their problem. This was interesting because it was kind of a shot at Thorndike’s puzzle boxes that he made for cats and said learning was by trial and error until a behavior as successful and weeding out the bad ones that didn’t work. This showed that it was clearly more complicated than this and certainly quicker than what was being done by the cats.
I just think that the thing that will be most useful to me in understanding the history of psychology will be how you can use examples from Kohler and Thorndike and see how some things can look pretty set in stone and then when you think you have it all figured out someone will come out with something else that improves your understanding of the subject. This just means to me that if you read something and then close it off as complete it will be hard to understand the new stuff with such closed-mindedness.
The topic that I would like to learn more about would be visual perceptions that we have. This would be good to go into more depth because the chapter kind of covers it but doesn’t really go super deep into explaining it. I guess this would be the thing that I also didn’t like that I should have mentioned above.
An idea that I had while reading this chapter, big surprise, was if someone could be completely absent of the ability to sort out the world around them what would happen? Like if it does happen and people don’t have these little mind tricks that we have to make perceptions easier how would their lives be affected and different?
Terms: principles of perceptual organization, figure-ground segregation, Edgar Rubin, background, Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms, proximities, similarities, good continuation, perceive, gestaltists, Pragnanz, Wolfgang Kohler, Thorndike, puzzle box, behavior, psychology, visual perceptions.
After reading chapter 9, there are three things that stuck out in my mind.
The first is the concept of figure-ground segregation. The figure-ground segregation, by Edgar Rubin, discusses the idea that our perceptual tendencies separate whole figures from the background, and these figures have distinct features that allow them to be isolated from the background. When reading of this, I was immediately reminded and interested due to all the figures I use to look at as a younger student. The one that I remember the most is the figure of a vase or two faces facing each other. I always knew the "trick" to seeing back figures, but never knew there was a distinct name for the "trick".
The second thing I found interesting was the Von Restorff effect. This effect states that any time a stimulus in an info stands out, it will be remembered easier than any other nonsense syllable. I found this interesting because I can agree with the statement. I find myself remembering things that don't always follow a pattern or are different in this case. I also found this interesting because it builds on the idea of previous chapters, such as Ebbinghaus's studies on CVC's and nonsense syllables.
The third thing I found interesting were the ideas of approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, and approach-avoidance. These concepts remind me of things I have learned in other classes and the way I teach the children at my place of work. There are times I give the children two positive benefits, or use the approach-approach method. However, there are also times I use the other two methods, but avoidance-avoidance is the method used the least. I again find it interesting because I have used these methods again and again and did not realize how long they have been around and when they were first "discovered".
One thing I disliked about the chapter was the section on Kohler's apes. Throughout many psychology classes studies of apes have been brought up time and time again, and have continued to become less interesting. Due to this, this section was very easily skimmed. Although it is interesting that there is a significant similarity between humans and apes, I have just read too many sections on this similarity for my favor.
This section is important in understanding history because some of these individuals were building on previous ideas and forming new ones. These individuals, although may not be famous, made an impact on psychology so it is a great resource to have to learn about them and their impact on how the subject is occurring today.
I didn't really have any ideas while reading this section. Just that it is important for these smaller names to be brought up so we do know where their impact on psychology occurred and who brought this impact to life.
Terms: figure-ground, Edgar Rubin, Von Restorff effect, nonsense syllable, Ebbinghaus, CVC, approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, approach-avoidance, Kohler, apes,
After reading this week’s chapter I found three things interesting. The first thing I found interesting was apparent motion. I find it interesting how the brain perceives events and makes sense of them. The eyes just went back and forth looking at the lights so it assumed that it was the same light changing positions. I also found it interesting how Max Wertheimer challenged the term apparent motion because he felt that that term meant the motion wasn’t perceived so he made a new term, phi phenomenon. It makes more sense that we perceive things as whole instead of pieces. Like if you think of the painting style of pointillism which is painting in dots. We would look at the whole picture not each dot. The last thing I found interesting was Koffka’s distinction between geographical and behavioral environment. It shows how everyone is greatly affected by their environment, whether it is behavioral or geographical, our environment affects how we act and perceive things. The thing I found least interesting was Kohler’s Insight in Apes. His studies on the Apes didn’t really interest me. That whole paragraph talked about the experiment and the details and that just didn’t interest me.
I think that the information that would be the most useful in understanding the history of psychology is the distinction between behavioral and geographical environment. I think that would help because environments are different in history so looking into them would be helpful. Last chapter we applied new psychology and in this chapter we are learning a new psychology. We are constantly developing and making new branches of psychology as we go in the book. A topic that I would like to learn more about is the topic of equilibrium. It would be interesting to know what our bodies do to keep equilibrium and what our mind does to keep equilibrium and what it does when something is out of balance. While reading this chapter I was thinking about how people’s life experiences change the perception of events. Like if someone was in a bad car accident they would perceive riding in a car as dangerous when a normal person doesn’t think twice about driving. Our life experiences really affect how we perceive and react to events.
Terms: equilibrium, Koffka, phi phenomenon, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, behavioral environment, geographical environment, pointillism, Insight in Apes
I thought chapter 10 was a fairly interesting chapter. I got really interested in a number of different sections of the chapter. This chapter talked about Gestalt psychology. It talked about how it came to be and what it is.
The first section that I found interesting was about Max Wertheimer and his part in founding gestalt psychology. Wertheimer became interested in the perceptual problem of apparent motion around 1910. The process of the newly created motion picture provided this concept of apparent motion. It was interesting reading about how two separate circles are flashed on and off and can create the image that they are one. There were two theories for why this illusion happened. The first theory was that the person would shift their eyes back and forth between the two circles making it appear that their was only one. The second idea was that the individual made an unconscious inference. Wertheimer formed the ideas about apparent motion into a field of research. The paper that came from this research is often known as the founding event of gestalt psychology. I thought it was really interesting how Wertheimer was able to rid the two previous theories fairly rapidly. He named re-named apparent motion to phi phenomenon because he did not like the term apparent. I also thought it was interesting that because of Hitler and the things that were going on in Germany, the U.S. gained not only Wertheimer but a number of other brilliant scientists that benefitted the field of psychology.
The next section I found interesting was about gestalt psychology and perception. The basic rules for determining how phenomena become organized into whole parts is called gestalt organizing principles. This section immediately interested me when it started talking about how one of our most basic perceptual tendencies is to separate images from their backgrounds. This concept is known as figure-ground segregation. The examples provided in the book of how our perception forms the images we see is really interesting. By changing which image we focus on we can see different things, but we can only see one of the images at a time and the other image becomes an unformed background. The three gestalt organizing principles discussed really interested me. I liked how the book explained the images they presented. The principle of proximity was interesting because since the dots were separated into pairs it made it impossible for me to view the dots as individuals. Also the next principle of similarity was interesting because I looked at the image before I read the description and noticed the pattern of alternating dots in vertical columns. Good continuation is the third principle. The image they provided for this example made it very difficult for me to view the two lines as possible turning off. I saw them as just being two curvy lines. Closure was also an interesting concept, but I did not really like the example used. I did however find it interesting that they showed even though my mind makes it look like two shapes were used to create the image, it could easily have been any number of shapes.
The third thing I found most interesting in this chapter was the section about Kohler and his insight on apes. This section was interesting because it talked about how he was interested in Thorndike's puzzle box experiments, but he did not like how Thorndike believed that the learning was from trial and accidental success. I found that interesting because I also did not like thinking that learning came from accidental success, but rather that it came from a different process. Kohler used the term insight to label the theory that we can rearrange elements of the problem to find a solution. I liked that Kohler set up his experiment so that the animals would be able to see the entire field they had to work with so they had the possibility of using insight to learn. I thought it was really interesting how the chimp, Sultan, could solve the problem by joining the two bamboo sticks together to reach the banana.
This chapter builds off of the previous chapters, because it pulls information from different chapters of the book that we have already read. It was nice having already read the chapters so I knew exactly what they were talking about, it also made it easier to relate to the new chapter.
I would really like to learn more about the experiment Kohler did with the chimps, because I thought that section was the most interesting of this chapter. I think it would be really interesting to watch and see how an animal is able to learn how to solve a problem using insight or "trial and success".
While reading this chapter I had a lot of ideas about how much fun it would have been to have conducted these experiments. The experiments on perception would have been really interesting, because I know the first time I learned about how based on what we perceive as the background we could see different images, I was amazed at how I had never been able to see it before.
Terms: gestalt, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, unconscious inference, phi phenomenon, perception, gestalt organizing principles, figure-ground segmentation, principle of proximity, similarity, good continuation, closure, and insight.
Having come into contact with the Gestalt view of psychology on a few occasions, I have to say that I don't really like all that they did. I respect and appreciate the fact that they challenged the conventional ways of looking at how the human mind works. However, they weren't just thinking "outside the box," but they were thinking inside another box. With how critical they were about conventional psychology, they were awfully quick to praise their own theories as fact.
The Gestalt view of psychology is just as valid as the other categories of psychology, however the book made it a point that they spoke loudly to make sure that they were heard. I don't know if I'm reading too much into this, but I see that as a possible bias...the desire for success and attention may have biased their results and theories.
I really liked the part about Kurt Lewin. Although some people considered him to be a contemporary gestaltist, he was an eclectic researcher who contributed practical solutions to problems in many disciplines of psychology. Although not all psychologists need to do research explicitly for solving real world problems, Lewin was able to find practical solutions to real world problems within his research.
Because the Gestalt approach is very confusing compared to traditional psychology which tries to break things down as opposed to view things as functions, the Gestaltists should have gradually introduced the idea. Instead, they radically imposed it as the counterpart to traditional American psychology. People didn't like the fact that they were radical, which clouded their understanding of what the gestaltists actually believed.
I think that instead of considering them to be their own group, they should have been considered cognitive psychologists.
I'm glad that I caught the part of the book that talks about why the gestaltists died out. The book attributed it to the fact that none of the gestaltists worked at schools that had graduate programs, which meant that they could not pass down their practices to new researchers. It is interesting to think about what psychology would look like if certain historical figures from other areas of psychology did not teach grad students, because they would not have had successors to take over after they retired and eventually passed away.
Terms:
Gestalt, Kurt Lewin, Eclectic, Functions.
I’m not sure that I can say it’s something that frustrated me or made me upset, but I thought that it was interesting that Wundt would give up the possible job of working in a laboratory. He knew he was possibly better for the job than Stumpf, yet he gave him the job anyway. I had a hard time understanding why. I guess in the end, the decision ended up working for the both of them.
Now for something I didn’t like, and this seems to happen in almost every chapter. The rich always seem to end up on top in every situation. It’s always “so and so grew up in a rich family and could afford to do all of these amazing things”. The example I first came across was Max Wertheimer. He was able to study many things while getting his doctorate because he had a wealthy family. Why can’t there ever be someone who discovers something or thinks of a new theory because of their sheer determination, and not the money that they have. It’s very disheartening and discouraging to current students in the field of psychology and/or science for that matter.
The first thing that I found interesting was apparent motion. I actually have been talking a lot about this because I am taking an intro to production class for fun. We talk a lot about it and I am currently using apparent motion in a documentary for the class. Even though I already knew about the theory, it was refreshing to see a more psychological explanation and application of the theory. It’s just genius to see how people thought to eliminate other hypothesis with seemingly simple explanations (example; the flashing and movement of lines “A, B, and C”).
The idea of Productive thinking was also really appealing to me. I very much support the idea that with repetition of good healthy thought, many things can be accomplished, sort of like a meditative sort of way. The mind is a beautiful thing and we can learn and discover new ideas when given certain information or enough time to just sit and discover intellectual thought. The idea of teaching children critical thinking skills so that they can understand different geometrical figures was amazing and it is something I would be interested in looking deeper into. I think that this is how we should be taught. If someone can understand a concept, they are better equipped to solve problems of a similar design than if they were to memorize a concept.
One more thing that I really liked was looking back at the different psychologies and where they originated. I remember some time back we learned about some psychology of another country in Europe, and now we are learning about German psychology (Gestalt). All of these different psychologies were mashed together to form “American Psychology”. It’s very similar how immigrants formed the America that we know today.
I really like that we are getting into modern psychology and the information is more and more relatable. I like reading about things that I learned in intro to psych. Not just because I get to learn about interesting things, but we are learning about the building blocks of modern psychology. It’s always nice to understand the basis of the theories you are learning in more advanced classes, also to know the basis of theories that you are using to test new hypotheses.
Terms: Gestalt, modern psychology, hypotheses, American psychology, immigrants, critical thinking, Wundt, Stumpf, Wertheimer, apparent motion.
RB
In reading through this chapter, not only were the psychologists interesting, but their contributions were also interesting as well. One of the first things that caught my eye was that of Wolfgang Kohler and his work with primates or apes in the Canary Islands. Getting marooned on the island at the onset of World War I and being accused of being a German spy didn’t seem to affect his research much. After year of studies, Kohler compiled his research into The Mentality of Apes, which really established him as a true scientist. Kohler argued against Thorndike’s step-by-step mechanical problem solving process. He instead, used a gestalt approach to this issue.
The next subject or topic that really jumped out at me was the Principles of Perceptual Organization. In this selection, Edgar Rubin discovered the figure-ground phenomenon, or when humans separate whole figures from their backgrounds. One of the determining factors in this is that figures have distinctive features in them that isolate them so to speak. This section really peaked my interest as I have seen illustrations like Rubin’s examples before. Such drawings have always sort of fascinated me in a way.
Another thing that I found to be of interest in this chapter was Max Wertheimer’s idea about productive thinking. Dissatisfied with the traditional teaching methods, Wertheimer introduced new ways to find the area of shapes. By doing this, he challenged the traditional method used, which was the base times height formula. After helping students understand the concept of area, the students soon had no trouble solving area problems without using the base times height formula.
There really wasn’t any topic that I truly didn’t like in this chapter. However, there was a couple of topics that confused me/ The part of this chapter that I think will aid me in furthering understanding psychology is that of the general description and definition of gestalt psychology itself. This chapter builds on other chapters as it touches on topics that have been previously mentioned in the pages before, such as cognition, education and learning. This chapter just explains in detail another way of addressing both cognition and learning. The one topic that I would like to further investigate would be that of Edgar Rubin and his contributions towards perceptual organization. In particular, I would like to learn more about the figure-ground illustrations.
Terms: Wolfgang Kohler, gestalt approach, principles of perceptual organization, Edgar Rubin, figure-ground phenomenon, Max Wertheimer, productive thinking, methods, formula, psychology, cognition, learning
Chapter nine was my first introduction to the Gestalt Psychology. I really enjoyed the overall idea of looking at the idea of psychology and developing a new perspective. I think in this era that may have taken some guts. The three things that interested me the most in this chapter was, the principle of Pragnanz, Wertheimer’s productive thinking, and Lewin’s field theory. The principle of Pragnanz was just a moment in the chapter that I was somewhat wowed by. All of the organizational principles were interesting, yet pretty basic. The figure 9.6 showed me the principle of Pragnanz. Why do we see figure B and not figures C when looking at figure A. I just had many ideas about why we think this? It makes me want to know more or create a study to see if everyone thinks of things in this way. I wonder if it is because we are a three demential minded. Not exactly sure how important this idea is, but for someone to think about the mind and how we connect these things interests me. The idea of Productive thinking was very intriguing to me. It ties in well with the several educational talks that we have previously spoke about in class as well as what we have learned in text. It makes me think of my math class that I took for teaching, we learned how to teach them to pass the test, not further push the children. When he did the math experiment there was a comment that the teacher was appalled by the question. She should be interesting in pushing her students. I personally have found that there are times in life when I can do things that I did not know I could, and I found this rewarding. Productive learning is the most beneficial, but is it around enough? This makes me also connect this theory to this class, I am learning things that I wouldn’t have if I was preparing for a test. Cognitive learning is an entire field that psychology directly influence.This adds on to our overall learning about the educational era that psychology has. The final thing that interests me is the field theory.Lewin was the first to take the theory and be a critic that made a study based on it. He believed that you must know a person before understanding their behavior. Understanding the persons overall life space, is to take into consideration all forces on a person during a behavior. This made me think further about many areas of behavior. I do think that understanding a persons totality gives us insight on why a person may behave in a certain way, however, I think you can understand behaviors without understanding life space. This idea would be beneficial to understand psychology in a whole, because behavior is what links us to all areas of psychology. Some basic behaviors remain constant across time based on individuals and how they were built. However, some people have behaviors that may be related to past experience. This topic could go on for hours, but I overall am just interested to learn more about it! One area of the chapter that I did not find my time used wisely learning was most information about the origins and development of Gestalt Psychology. I would have liked that to be shorter and spend more time on actual studies and criticisms of them, and research.
Key Terms: Gestalt Psychology, principle of Pragnanz, Wertheimer, Productive thinking, Lewin, Field Theory, life space, behavioral psychology, cognitive learning,
Chapter nine was my first introduction to the Gestalt Psychology. I really enjoyed the overall idea of looking at the idea of psychology and developing a new perspective. I think in this era that may have taken some guts. The three things that interested me the most in this chapter was, the principle of Pragnanz, Wertheimer’s productive thinking, and Lewin’s field theory. The principle of Pragnanz was just a moment in the chapter that I was somewhat wowed by. All of the organizational principles were interesting, yet pretty basic. The figure 9.6 showed me the principle of Pragnanz. Why do we see figure B and not figures C when looking at figure A. I just had many ideas about why we think this? It makes me want to know more or create a study to see if everyone thinks of things in this way. I wonder if it is because we are a three demential minded. Not exactly sure how important this idea is, but for someone to think about the mind and how we connect these things interests me. The idea of Productive thinking was very intriguing to me. It ties in well with the several educational talks that we have previously spoke about in class as well as what we have learned in text. It makes me think of my math class that I took for teaching, we learned how to teach them to pass the test, not further push the children. When he did the math experiment there was a comment that the teacher was appalled by the question. She should be interesting in pushing her students. I personally have found that there are times in life when I can do things that I did not know I could, and I found this rewarding. Productive learning is the most beneficial, but is it around enough? This makes me also connect this theory to this class, I am learning things that I wouldn’t have if I was preparing for a test. This adds on to our overall learning about the educational era that psychology has. The final thing that interests me is the field theory.Lewin was the first to take the theory and be a critic that made a study based on it. He believed that you must know a person before understanding their behavior. Understanding the persons overall life space, is to take into consideration all forces on a person during a behavior. This made me think further about many areas of behavior. I do think that understanding a persons totality gives us insight on why a person may behave in a certain way, however, I think you can understand behaviors without understanding life space. This idea would be beneficial to understand psychology in a whole, because behavior is what links us to all areas of psychology. Some basic behaviors remain constant across time based on individuals and how they were built. However, some people have behaviors that may be related to past experience. This topic could go on for hours, but I overall am just interested to learn more about it! One area of the chapter that I did not find my time used wisely learning was most information about the origins and development of Gestalt Psychology. I would have liked that to be shorter and spend more time on actual studies and criticisms of them, and research.
Key Terms: Gestalt Psychology, principle of Pragnanz, Wertheimer, Productive thinking, Lewin, Field Theory, life space, cognitive learning, behavioral psychology
I found this chapter difficult to get into. Perhaps it had something to do with Spring Break, but I feel like the material was boring. I did somewhat enjoy the section about the Gestalt approach to cognition and learning. I liked this part mainly because I am interested in cognition and learning. In this section, I especially liked the part about Kohler's research on problem solving in apes. I think that we as humans sometimes tend to think of ourselves as separate from other animals and that there is no way in which animals are able to form thoughts in the manner in which we do. Thorndike, through his puzzlebox experiment, said that learning and problem solving was a process of trial and "accidental success." Kohler on the other hand, said that solutions to problems occur when individuals can see the whole problem and rearrange the elements of the problem into new configurations. Kohler called the ability to perceive and approach the problems as insight. I liked this section because it showed that Thorndike's approach to learning was somewhat flawed, but also that animals are able to experience the same insights as humans to solve problems and to learn.
The second thing that I found interesting in this chapter was the Von Restorff effect. Basically Hedwig Von Restorff, in addition to having an awesome name, found that if a three digit number was embedded in a series of nonsense syllables, the numbers were almost always remembered over the letters. She said that the number provided a "sharp figure" against the background letters. The reason I found this interesting was because I was intrigued on if it would actually work. I looked up some examples online and found that it did in fact work. I then started to wonder if the same thing would happen in there were three letters in a sea of nonsense numbers. My mind went off on tangents about how this change would affect the result. When trying to decided what I liked most about this chapter, the Von Restoff effect stayed in my mind, despite it being such a small part of the chapter.
The third thing I liked about the chapter was the idea that Kohler was a German spy. Not only did it tie the history of psychology with the history of the rest of the world, but it was just a fun bit of information. I also liked that it shows dimension to these scientists so we can stop seeing them as one dimensional beings that only ever studied psychology. We can now see that they were human: they had lives, issues, loves, enemies, and they had to take sides in world wars. As someone who loves the history behind both world wars, this was a very fun section to read.
The part that I did not like about the chapter was the first few sections of the origins and early development of Gesalt Psychology. I just felt like it was boring and probably had an impact on me for the remainder of the chapter.
I think the thing that is most useful to understanding the history of psychology is the part about how Kohler disagreed with Thorndike and found a flaw in his study. It shows that, throughout the history of the field, we think we have something figured out until it is challenged and expanded upon.Nothing is set in stone; this is what I will take away from this section. This ties into how this chapter ties in with previous chapters. Every chapter the field is expanding and growing. Things are being challenged and modified. Certain areas of the field of psychology are being cemented in place. I would really like to learn more about Kohler and everything he did with the Apes. I feel like those studies would be interesting to learn about.
Terms: Kohler, insight, Von Restoff Effect, Gestalt Psychology, Cognitive learning.
I found the Close Up on page 297 of the text to be most interesting. Wolfgang Kohler was suspected by some of being a spy. One of the employees at his Research Station on the island of Tenerife named Manuel Gonzales y Garcia was convinced that Kohler’s interests at the island were not purely about the research apes. Gonzales y Garcia thought that Kohler did not seem as interested in working with the animals as he was on the traffic of Allied ships. Tenerife was strategically located near Allied shipping lanes and since Kohler had a wireless radio which could have been used to convey information to German U-boats. Many discount the theory that Ronald Ley has put forth, but I do not believe that it can be totally discounted. If Kohler had loyalties to his homeland of Germany, it would not be unthinkable for him to try to assist in the German war effort. His wife, Thekla Kohler, is credited with being more involved in the research than he was, and she did the majority of the work needed to complete the study they were conducting on the island.
The principles of perceptual organization were also very intriguing to me. The ability to differentiate figures from a background is referred to as figure-ground segregation. It reminds me of some art works that were popular some years ago that were made exactly to illustrate that concept. The pictures looked like a blob of differently colored pixels, and if you crossed your eyes just right they would magically morph into a super-cool painting – I saw one that became the solar system and another that was a deep sea picture. It took a long time for me to even see the first image in one of those artworks. Edgar Rubin, a Danish psychologist, wrote that figure-ground perception can be changed by refocusing attention on different aspects of a figure. Figure-ground segregation was one of several organizing principles that are the laws of simplicity, Pagnanz, where our mind takes an ambiguous image and morph it into something that is familiar. The same works with incomplete images, because the mind has the ability to fill in the blanks based on previously learned information.
I also like reading about the work of Karl Duncker on functional fixedness. His work proved that if people had preconceived ideas about uses for objects then it was difficult for most of them to visualize any other use for the object. Duncker related that concept to radiation therapy for tumor destruction. When he showed students a diagram of a beam of radiation moving in a fixed direction through the tumor, most students were unable to devise treatments which allowed for the beam to come from other directions through the body and into the tumor. This is one concept that is hard for people to overcome, the ability to improvise and rethink a situation outside of the box (as we term it today).
Kohler’s work with the apes was least interesting for me. I have this “thing” about monkeys and apes - I just do not care for them. I would never want to do research on monkeys and apes because I would not like working closely with them. I think this all extends from visits to the zoo that I went on as a child. They are unpredictable and we should not have them locked up in zoos or labs, they should be left out in the wild. The monkeys and apes in the zoo were always loud and flinging poop and whizzing on each other. It disgusted me then and it disgusts me now. I am not floored by their abilities to use “tools” to eat ants or anything like that, because I do believe that most monkeys posses enough intelligence to get what they want through brute force, mimicry and persistence.
This chapter was building on the last chapter by continuing with the study of the mind and the effects of illusion. The Gestalt theorists were not as interested in breaking the mind down into individual parts, but studying the perceptions of the mind as whole. I did like that concept, because our mind does have the ability to process information on many levels at once. I believe that we create our ideas from experiences, emotions and environmental factors all at once, and it is not something that we consciously do.
I am still stuck on that concept of Kohler being a spy. The main reason is because I have been watching a series on the History channel about spies in different countries around the world during World War II, then I read this chapter and there was the suspicion about Kohler. I do not judge Kohler as good or bad, I am sure that if he was a spy that it seemed like the thing to do at the time. I would like to see if I can find more information to support of disprove the theory that Ley had about Kohler.
Terminology:
Wolfgang Kohler, Tenerife, Manuel Gonzales y Garcia, Ronald Ley, Thekla Kohler, figure-ground segregation, Edgar Rubin, laws of simplicity, Pagnanz, Karl Duncker, functional fixedness, radiation therapy, Gestalt theorists
I thought the possibility that Wolfgang Kohler may have been a spy for the German troops in World War II was incredibly interesting and kind of cool. Whether it is true or not, stories like this help remind me that the scientists we are reading about did have lives outside of their research and all had different personalities. I would like to look into the book that Ronald Ley wrote about Kohler and his espionage.
In reading chapter 9, I found the Law of Pragnanz to be an incredibly interesting show of the way the mind works. The book showed multiple situations in which a picture could be organized in more than one way. The Law of Pragnanz says the human brain organizes all ambiguous stimuli presented into the most simple and likely possibility. Therefore, when looking at a picture of a wavy “x” for example, we tend to see it as two wavy lines crossing each other. We see it this way because this would be the easiest way to draw it and this is the most likely possibility in the real world (like two strings). The human mind is so complex and amazing in how it organizes the world.
I also thought that Kohler’s research on apes was very interesting. It was interesting to me that Kohler set out initially to disprove the idea that problem solving is a step-by-step, guess-and-check process but instead relies on insight. Kohler thought insight is the moment when you see the whole picture of what you are trying to accomplish and suddenly know how to solve the problem. This was interesting to me because I don’t think one could ever differentiate between the two proposed methods. Under Kohler’s process, one would try and try to come up with a solution, possibly trying different solution until insight hits you. Kohler’s insight could easily be compared to the moment when you try something that works in Thorndike’s “accidental success.”
I found the beginning of the chapter very un-interesting. I had trouble reading it and when I was done, I didn’t really remember what I read. I think the very fact based, chronological sort of reading doesn’t work well for me.
This chapter built on previous chapters by talking about some people we had already run into as well as expanding on the principles already talked about.
I would like to learn more about apparent motion and how it is used in technologies today.
Terms: Wolfgang Kohler, Law of Pragnanz, insight, Thorndike, accidental success
BR
Chapter eight was a pretty interesting one to read. The first thing that got me interested was Köhler and his study on apes and insight. This study was a challenge to Thorndike’s puzzle experiments, which Köhler did not agree with. I thought it was interesting and it made sense that he thought Thorndike’s was wrong because he didn’t let the animals see the entire field. I think that by doing this there would be a difference in results. Köhler came up with the term insight for the process of components being reconfigured that have perceptual quality to them as well as they occur quickly. It was interesting to me that the monkey finally figured out to put the two sticks together to obtain the banana. I’ve always been intrigued when animals can do things that us humans can.
Another interesting topic from the chapter was the section on the Zeigarnik Effect. This kept my attention because I felt I could relate to the study done about the waitress and how they kept memory of everything until they got paid because after being paid the customers weren’t of any importance anymore in a sense. I used to work a race shop and there was tons of parts and part numbers for the inventory, and after a while I had the location as well as many part numbers memorized. I don’t work there anymore and I still can map out in my head the location and the numbers of the parts. It’s crazy how that works because those numbers aren’t of any importance to me anymore. It’s kind of like photographic memory but it doesn’t stay with you forever.
The third thing I found interesting was Lewin’s research done in Iowa. First off it was awesome that he lived here and did research in Iowa in general. I thought his study was interesting because it showed how children can go from playing with something simple for free play, then him showing them something new and cooler and allowing them to play that for a little bit then taking the new and cooler toys away and having them go back to their first toys. This caused tension on the children and they tried a variety of ways to get the new and cooler toys back. They became emotionally upset and as well as more destructive. This study portrayed dedifferentiation meaning that their life space as become less complex over time. This was only a temporary shift. I thought this was an interesting study because it combined his gestalt ideas with developmental psychology.
Chapter eight builds off previous chapters because it incorporates information that we have read and learned about in the chapters before this one. It’s easier to understand and read these chapters when previous ones’ content is used in them.
I would like to learn more about Lewin’s research with children and exactly what ages he worked with as well as what different experiments he used.
Terms: Köhler, Thorndike, insight, Zeigarnik Effect, memory, Lewin, dedifferentiation, gestalt, developmental psychology
I really liked the part where the chapter discussed an example of the Zeigarnik Effect that dealt with waitressing. It said that a waiter remembered what each student had ordered while they were still inside the restaurant; upon the students paying their bills and exiting the restaurant, the waiter forgot everything. I am a waitress so I understood what the example meant. When I am serving, the same thing happens to me. The book said something about the memory and “life space” of the waiter’s environment. His “life space” had tension to it, so it was easier to remember when the stakes were high. After the students had left, it was useless for him to remember what their orders were. This makes me think of other instances in my life where information that is important at the time it is needed to be retained, is no longer needed after that time, and is therefore forgotten easily. However, I think the exception to this is repetition. For example, I once had to memorize all of the first two verses of Johnny Cash’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” for show choir in high school. After our performances were over, there was really no need to know this song unless I wanted to do a killer karaoke performance. I can still to this day recite all the words, even though it is completely useless to me now.
I also enjoyed reading about Kohler’s experiments the chimpanzees, specifically Sultan, . I thought it was amazing that he figured out how to put the two sticks together so quickly. His concept of insight intrigues me because I’ve always wondered about certain animals’ level of intelligence. Although, intelligence has many different definitions; psychologists argue about this all the time, as I’ve read in various articles. I’m still not sure what I think the true definition of intelligence is. Who decides the criteria for intelligence, and who is intelligent enough to decide that? Another thing I liked about these experiments were that they were kind of a spin-off of Thorndike puzzle-box experiments. I think the main difference though, was that the cats were stuck in boxes trying to escape, whereas the chimpanzees were not really doing the same. They were mostly just trying to solve the puzzle rather than escape.
Field theory was another interesting concept to read about. This theory, introduced by Lewin, had to do with all of the specific and different forces influencing a person’s behavior during a certain time. “Life space,” which describes the space that a person acts in, falls under this concept as well. I would like to learn more about the Zeigarnik Effect and how it plays into other life situations.
Terms: Zeigarnik Effect, life space, environment, tension, memory, Kohler, experiments, insight, Sultan, intelligence, psychologists, Thorndike, puzzle-box, field theory, Lewin, behavior