Please
read chapter 9. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following
questions:
(Note: to
help with organization points please keep the numbering)
1a) What topic
did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
2a) What person
did you find interesting?
2b) Why were they
interesting to you?
3a) What
do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
4) What
did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in
understanding the history of psychology?
5) How,
in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already
learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in
other classes?
6a) What
topic would you like to learn more about?
6b) Why?
7) What
ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading
the chapter?
8) Once
you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in
your post.
Let us
know if you have any questions,
--Dr. M
1)What did you find interesting and why?
One thing that I found interesting was the topic of Gestalt psychology and perception. More specifically, I thought learning about figure-ground segregation was really neat. I love optical illusions, and even had a book full of them when I was a kid. So, seeing all the figures scattered through the text that involved eye tricks was really fun for me. I did not know what the eye tricks were called specifically, so it was really cool to be able to put a term to what I experience.
2)What did you find interesting and why?
The section about apparent motion (or as Wertheimer liked to call it, phi phenomenon) was also really interesting. I think it was interesting to me because we tested this in my Anatomy class my freshman year. I don’t remember it being called apparent motion, but my professor did the same thing that was depicted in the text, so it was cool to be able to apply real life experience to what I was reading.
3)What did you find interesting and why?
I think the information provided in the Close Up was intriguing. Evidently, there was an alternative motive for Kohler to travel to the Canary Islands, besides studying apes. The Close Up says that he was a German spy, giving information about ships at sea. The island he was on was very mountainous, which gave him a great view of allied shipping. He denied ever being a spy and said that people were spreading rumors, but it’s fun to think that a psychologist could have also led part of his life doing some espionage.
4)What did you find least interesting and why?
I would say that I was pretty interested in the entire chapter. I started reading, and before I knew it the chapter was over. The section that confused me the most was about the origin of Gestalt psychology and act psychology. I read it a few times, bbut the concept just hasn’t clicked for me yet.
5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think it is important to remember that Gestalt psychology does not just apply to perception; when this new approach to psychology came about, it was a way to understand all concepts of psychology. In error, some thought that Gestalt psychology was just another theory in trying to understand perception. But, as it is outlined in the chapter, Gestalt psychology can be applied to cognition and learning as well.
6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This builds of previous chapters by laying the groundwork for introducing Gestalt principles. This, although it is not widely used today, was very relevant at the time and was seen as a pretty big breakthrough. In introductory courses and classes about perception, Gestalt principles are taught. So, it is important to learn how it originated and go into some more detail of what Gestalt psychology really is.
7)What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I think I would like to learn more about Wertheimer’s theory on productive thinking, and if it is still existent today. Do people still think about this theory and do research aligned with it?
8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading the chapter, I was thinking about other optical illusions that I have experienced in the past and tried to apply some of the terms I had read to those images. I also had learned a little about Gestalt psychology in my intro class, but did not remember anything about it, so I liked that I was able to learn in some more detail about the subject.
9)Gestalt psychology, figure-ground segregation, apparent motion, phi phenomenon, perception, cognition, learning
1) What did you find interesting? Why?
The first thing I found interesting in this chapter was the different types of leadership styles. I found the differences between them interesting as well. However, what I found the most fascinating from that section of the text was the boys’ reactions to the new leadership styles when switching between them. I thought it was interesting to learn about how when the boys switched from Authoritarian to Democratic, they had a difficult time taking part in their leadership. I never realized how much of an effect different leadership styles had on groups of people. This will be important to remember for my career. If and when I get a higher position, productivity can peak when coworkers are involved in making and attaining goals.
2) What did you find interesting? Why?
The second thing I found interesting from this the study of optical illusions. The concept within this section that I found the most interesting was the figure-ground theory. This is when the eye distinguishes the object from the background in which it is perceived. I thought it was interesting to learn a term for a concept that I have encountered my whole life. I enjoy seeing things from different perspectives, and I like optical illusions because they can do just that. I really enjoyed learning about how the brain perceives things in different ways.
3) What did you find interesting? Why?
I enjoyed reading about Kohler’s study on apes while being stuck on Tenerife. I thought it was funny that Garcia and Kohler expected the apes to be tame around them. I just thought this was funny because it shows the ignorance of people. Most people expect other people/animals to behave in ways that the person wants. I see this frequently college campuses as well as the local and national communities.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
The thing I did not find interesting in this chapter was Lewin’s field theory. At first I found the topic difficult to understand, however, I quickly realized that it wasn’t that hard of a concept and that I was just not interested in reading about it. I do give Lewin credit for coming up with a theory that was different than others that I have read about. Yet, I still just did not find any of it interesting.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that Kohler’s study of apes would be useful in understanding more of psychology. Biology and Psychology have been integrated together in some professions. I think that his study helped to create or spark the interest in others to study apes. I myself have created my own study of gorillas and bonobos. If Kohler hadn’t been stuck on the island and hadn’t written his book The Mentality of Apes then other researchers may not have become interested in the subject and as a result, there would be less research done on the beautiful animals.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter has focused on how the brain processes information. Few chapters ago, we learned about the switch from structuralism to functionalism. The information in this chapter has built upon the studies and ideas of those in the previous chapters. This chapter also discusses Gestalt psychology. The last chapter talked about how psychology was being incorporated into new fields and was being used in different ways. I also think this chapter builds off those concepts as well.
7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I think I would like to learn more about Kohler’s study on the island. I enjoy reading about the research other people have done, so I think that it would be enjoyable to read about Kohler and his observation of the apes of Tenerife.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter, I thought back to my study at the San Diego Zoo/Wild Animal Park. I thought back to my observations of the apes there and how I enjoyed seeing them interact both with each other and the people outside their exhibits. I also thought about the type of parent I would like to be. I would hope that my husband and I won’t be authoritarian and choose to be more democratic. I would also hope that my husband’s and my relationship is the same democratic style.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Authoritarian, Democratic, Laissez-Faire, Lewin, Field Theory, optical illusions, Kohler, The Mentality of Apes, Gestalt psychology
1) I found Franz Brentano’s act psychology to be very interesting to read about. It is interesting to read about because each person has a different view and perceives every event a little differently. I thought it was different to look at the mind like an active entity. Act psychology focuses on what the mind does rather than what is contained within it. Brentano proposed an alternative phenomenological introspection as a means to study mental acts and intentionality. I was surprised to learn that act psychology was a forerunner to the Würzberg school and helped provided the philosophical foundation for the founding of functionalism. This type of psychology really stuck out to me because I am also interested in what the brain does rather than what is actually contained within it. Act psychology also went on to influence Ehrenfels and Husserl, both students of Brentano.
2) I thought that apparent motion was also another interesting topic to read about and how it contributed to the founding of Gestalt psychology. I found it interesting because of the many different theories that there were over why we only perceive one light instead of two. During apparent motion in a darkened room, two adjacent small circles are flashed on and off in sequences. If the interval between the flashing of the two lights is just about at 60 milliseconds, the perception will be of a single light that moves from side to side as a continuous event. One of the first ideas was that circles flashed alternately and the person would shift the eyes from left to right, over and over. Sensory stimulation resulting from the movements of the eye was said to produce the perceptual “fusion” that was experienced as movement. The second explanation said that if the light was in position A then in position B, it must have moved there. Wertheimer later referred to the term as phi phenomenon because apparent applied that motion was not actually perceived. This topic is still very interesting to read about in ways in which the mind can play tricks on our perception to come to another conclusion.
3) I found figure ground segregation interesting to read about because we looked a lot at perception in high school so now it is neat to be able to place a word behind all of the figures we were seeing. These figures can only be viewed as a “whole” one at a time and you may find yourself shifting rapidly between one or another. A famous example of this is the vase and the faces in the same picture. When accurately perceived, we either see a set of faces or a vase in the picture. The black area is not perceived as anything when the vase is present, but when the faces are examined, the white area is not perceived. I was surprised to learn that the Pittsburg Zoo has the perception of figure ground segregation as well. The most common known one today is the arrow that lies within the FedEx logo. I think it is important to realize that our mind can easily be fooled by perception and how psychologists sought to explain this phenomenon.
4) I found Hedwig Restroff’s work with the Restorff effect to be uninteresting to read about. This effect stated that numbers embedded within a series of syllables would be sharper than the syllables which would be nonsense. I guess the reason I find it uninteresting is because many students realize they are better at recalling numbers than syllables today without knowing anything about past research into it. It makes me wonder if it is so much a discovery as a founding principal for remembering in a way. I just didn’t find the brief mention of this interesting because of the length it was described in. I think more research into the topic would do it better justice.
5) I think the understanding of geographical environment and behavioral environment will be important to the understanding of the history of psychology. I think it is important to differentiate these terms because geographical environment involves reality whereas behavioral environment involves the world in the way in which we perceive it. The latter perception determines how we act as individuals. Koffka founded these principles of Gestalt psychology in 1935 in order to create a better understanding for making distinctions between realities. Kurt Lewin went on to expand on this in a concept which he called “life space” in which if the behavioral and geographic environments differ, then two people in the same geographic environment are likely to perceive it differently. Even between a geologist and a Botanist the same reading may vary based on the descriptions because of the reality in which they are in.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
In previous chapters the book discusses the development of adolescents into adults and the stages they go through during this development. This chapter talks about Lewin and his work with social psychology. Lewin studied areas that involved the consequences of different leadership styles. Adolescent boys, he came to find, were more effective when led by a democratic leader than by an autocratic or a laissez-faire leader. Lewin’s work related to previous chapters in the sense of development and how individuals responded to leadership styles. Lewin also sought to understand prejudice and its reduction, in-group loyalty, and the effectiveness of group process.
7) I would like to look more into Kohler’s research into problem solving in animals. Kohler criticized Thorndike’s mechanical trial-and-error explanation of animal learning and argued instead that animals could show insight and solve problems quickly if they were able to perceive all elements of the problem situation. I was surprised to learn that the apes were actually able to stack boxes to retrieve fruit suspended from the ceiling and by building crude instruments to retrieve out-of-reach fruit. I would like know if this type of behavior can be experienced in other animals or is it just because apes have a higher intelligence? I would also like to compare and contrast Thorndike and Kohler’s work into studying behavior and problem solving.
8) I remember in high school when we were asked to tell the teacher what we seen in an image that had two different perceptions to it. This term now referred to as figure ground segregation had us all baffled because some of us couldn’t perceive the other image as well as others. After staring at the image, my mind would go back and forth between each perception. I remember the famous case and two faces very well as individuals struggled to clearly define what was there. Up until that point, I don’t think most of us had even seen images that made you see each picture as a “whole.” I remember that our challenge was to find our own figure ground segregation image and share it with the class. When I read chapter 9, a lot of fun memories and ideas resulted from learning about the different perceptions of individuals.
9) Act psychology, apparent motion, phi phenomenon, restorff effect, figure ground segregation, life space, geographical environment, behavioral environment, gestalt psychology
Please read chapter 9. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting? Wolfgang Kohler
1b) Why was it interesting to you? I found him interesting because I enjoyed reading about his work with apes, and especially with the rumor with espionage for the Germans in World War I. It was also interesting to read about how his views on psychology and Jewish people in Germany. He was clearly against Jewish people having to leave the sciences, and being judged on their ethnicity rather than their mental intellect. He spoke out against the Nazi interference with the academics and keeping Jewish professors out of the schools. After he wrote articles against this, he was ordered to open all his lectures with a Nazi salute. He was said to do this with noticeable sarcasm. I wished I could have been in his class to see him do the sarcastic Nazi salute. It is also pretty interesting that he would continue to do that sarcastically as he knew he was putting his life in danger, or at least possibly being arrested for doing things against the German government.
2a) What did you find interesting? Figure-ground
2b) Why was it interesting to you? I liked reading about figure-ground segregation which was introduced by Edgar Rubin, which can be seen as part of the Gestalt psychology and the ideas of perception. Figure-ground states that the border of figures seems to belong to the figure. There are a lot of pictures that are common today that demonstrate this figure-ground relationship. This is where you can look at one picture, generally done in black and white, and see two different figures, depending on how you focus your attention.
3a) What did you find interesting? Max Wertheimer
3b) Why was it interesting to you? I liked Wertheimer and his study on cognition. He went to a classroom where students had just learned to find the area of a parallelogram. He didn’t like the traditional study of math, and how often children were made to rely on memorization of formulas and rules, without being told the ideas behind those concepts and formulas. Wertheimer visited the class the next day and showed them a slightly different parallelogram than the one they had solved the day before, and they could not solve it. Wertheimer believed that if students were taught the “why” they would understand the “how”. They needed to have insight into the concepts before learning the rules to formulas. I liked this section because I think this is very important to education today. Students will remember more if we tell them how things work, and why it is important.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Lewin and field theory
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? I just didn’t think his research and his theory, field theory wasn’t very interesting. I just thought the idea of life space and the whole idea of various ovals and the foreign hull, just didn’t grab my attention. I understood the whole approach –approach conflict, avoidance- avoidance conflict and approach-avoidance conflict theory, which I liked. I guess I just didn’t care for the layout of his theory?
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? I was thinking about my own math classes when the textbook talked about Wertheimer and parallelograms. I feel like my high school math teachers just gave us the formulas, and didn’t really explain the concepts behind the formulas. I always felt confused in high school math because I felt like it was a giant memorization game.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? This chapter built on previous chapters about the ideas of perception. It also discusses education and cognitive development which we discussed in class.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? Lewin and developmental psychology
7b) Why? I’d like to learn more about Lewin and developmental psychology because I like his ideas about needing to look at personality instead of just environment when it comes to evaluating behavior. Sometimes I feel like some people overemphasize environmental factors in a child’s behavior, and almost neglect personality traits. I would like to see what else Lewin has to say about this.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? I thought about the world during this time period, and all the psychologists, scientists, and many other academic people that had to flee Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. It’s just interesting to think what Germany could have been like today if so many academic people weren’t forced to leave Germany during this time period.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Wolfgang Kohler
Figure-ground
Edgar Rubin
Gestalt psychology
Perception
Max Wertheimer
Lewin and field theory
life space
foreign hull
approach –approach conflict
avoidance- avoidance conflict
approach-avoidance conflict
1a) What did you find interesting?
I found the Principles of Perceptual Organization section quite interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I like optical illusions because I think it is cool how you may not see something in the illusion but once you are told what you are supposed to see, it is hard not to see it. I also think it is interesting that whether the background is black or white has something to do with how we view the illusion. The main reason I found this part interesting was because I have always found optical illusions interesting to look at, so it is interesting to see how Psychology has something to do with how we see them.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I also thought the section on Field Theory was interesting.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I liked the example of the cookie jar being out of reach. I also liked the approach and avoidance part of this section. I liked this section because from these examples I could relate these to my life. I also thought it was interesting to know that approach and avoidance techniques are how people approach most situations.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I also found the Zeigarnik Effect interesting.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought this was interesting because I have seen it before. I have seen waiters and waitresses at restaurants who take my order and memorize it without writing it down. I think it is interesting to know that they can have it memorized the whole time I am in the restaurant but once I leave they don’t know it anymore. I like knowing that once information is not relevant anymore, you forget it.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I found the background information on Gestalt psychology to be the least interesting part of this chapter.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I did not find it interesting because I thought there were numerous other parts of this chapter that were interesting. I preferred the section on optical illusions. I also preferred the section on the apes. I thought those sections were much more interesting than the background information on Gestalt Psychology and the Gestalt psychologists.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the information on Gestalt psychology was the most useful information. Even though I found this the most boring, I think it is useful because it tells me about another type of psychology that has been talked about in my previous psychology classes. It is also helpful to know that the belief of Gestalt psychology was not that popular and did not stick around too long but it is still nice to know what different beliefs are out there.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter built on previous chapters by digging deeper into perception. It also showed that the Gestalt Psychologists were not very good at applying their beliefs. This was the main talk of the last chapter. The Gestalt psychologists did not value the importance of application.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about the apes.
7b) Why?
I think it is interesting, because apes seem to be the smartest animals I have ever read about. I thought the experiment with the ape trying to reach the banana was interesting to read about so I would like to learn about more experiments done with apes to test their intelligence.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I wondered about other ape experiments. I also thought about the other optical illusions that I have seen in the past. I also wondered if there were any more experiments that have been done like the waiter experiment because I found that interesting.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Perceptual organization, Optical illusions, Field theory, Approach, Avoidance, Zeigarnik effect, Gestalt psychology
Chapter 9
1) What did you find interesting? Why?
I found the research on apparent motion to be interesting. It is cool to read about how in the experiments Max Wertheimer was able to flash two individual lights and the subject perceived two different lights as moving instead of just two individual lights. Wertheimer concluded that the whole is different from and determines the nature of its parts in the experiments where he shined two different lights making the apparent movement happen or the phi phenomenon. This study lead to awards for many of the members involved as well.
2) What did you find interesting? Why?
Wolfgang Kohler’s summary in the “Mentality of Apes” was interesting to me because I thought it was cool to read about his work with animals and their ability to problem solve. In this he challenged Thorndike’s idea of trial and error and instead said that some animals were able to show insight and solve problems quickly if they were able to see all the elements of the problem at hand. He used apes and placed food in areas like above their heads where it is not easy to reach or just out of reach of their cages and watched as they would use items in their environments to gain access to the food.
3) What did you find interesting? Why?
The section on Kurt Lewin and his work with leadership styles with adolescent boys was interesting. Lewin found that adolescent boys were the most effective then lead by a democratic leader over an autocratic or laissez-faire leader. To me this is interesting because I hope to have children some day and of course want to be the best parenting figure I can be as well as if I were to ever be a coach or worked with younger children in psychology I would want to be the most effective I could be in y leadership role with them.
4) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
I found that concept of life space were dull to read. I think the ideas of the different factors influencing a person’s actions in a given moment to be interesting. However, I don’t find the input of a mathematical idea (B-f (P,E)) to be interesting and kind of turned me away from the idea. I think that Lewin was on to something here but I did just did not find it very interesting.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think just an overall understanding of Gestalt Psychology will be helpful. I think seeing the ways that the subject area first spread around the world (or more from Europe to America) as well as how this type of psychology started areas and helped others like the study of apparent motion and developmental psychology are just two examples of how the Gestalt has influenced two areas.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter relates to previous chapters in a good way in Kohler’s challenge to Thorndike and his ideas about animals and their ability to problem solve. I enjoy reading things like this because it shows that no one really has a for sure grasp on a subject or an idea and that it is always subject to changes or challenges. I may like some ideas but it is always good to have my thinking challenged.
7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would love to read more about what specific work Kurt Lewin did when he was located here in Iowa. He was located at the Child Welfare Research Station. It would be cool to what he did for the state and the University of Iowa where he would have been located for his time here in Iowa.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading this chapter I thought about my sensation and perception class and how the apparent motion study that was performed by Wertheimer, Koffka, and Kohler was talked about slightly but not to in depth and I started to question how the study has seemed to evolve into a whole subject area and how technology has helped the area understand better. In my class we watched on the computer movements of humans with balls just on certain joints and points on the body. As we watched these clips we could not see anything about the person wearing them just the balls as white sports and off of these spots we could almost always tell if it was a man or women moving, saying something about our perception of movement.
9) Terms: apparent motion, Max Wertheimer, phi phenomenon, Wolfgang Kohler, Thorndike, Kurt Lewin, life space, Gestalt Psychology, developmental psychology, Child Welfare Research Station
1a) What did you find interesting? 1b) Why was it interesting to you?
One thing I found interesting was the Von Restorff effect. I found the Von Restorff effect because I liked how it was involving recalling information in our memory. The man who founded this idea was Hedwig von Restorff. He discovered that if people learned lists of things with a 3 digit number within a phrase the words would be recalled better later on. I found this interesting because I wondered why this happened and why 3-digit numbers and not any other? The text explained that this caused information to be learned better because it focused on syllables that stand out.
2a) What did you find interesting? 2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Kurt Lewin interesting and his ideas involving vectors and conflicts. I found these concepts interesting because this was a huge contribution to the field at this time. The text discusses Lewins approaches of approach-approach conflict, avoidance-avoidance conflict, and approach-avoidance conflict. Lewin analyzed conflicts where he felt like needs occurred. He talked about these conflicts as when two vectors are putting pressure in opposite directions. It was easy to understand these three concepts because the text gave food examples that were easy to follow.
3a) What did you find interesting? 3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Lastly, I found Max Wertheimer interesting and his ideas of perception. I found Wertheimers ideas of perception interesting because he discusses how our perceptions are organized. The principles that Wertheimer explains are figure ground, grouping by proximity and similarity, and good continuation. He also explains how we tend to organize our perceptions into simple wholesome ideas. These ideas, Wertherimers describes, completely take over our perceptions. As well as we put together ideas by filling in the holes where our perception doesn’t cover. This is referred to as closure.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
One thing I did not like about this chapter was how it was all about Gestalt psychology. There were some concepts that were somewhat enjoying to read about but I wish there would have been more interesting information to learn about. This chapter wasn’t very interesting to me because nothing caught my attention enough to make me want to write about it for the blog. Although, I found a couple people that were somewhat interesting, I found this chapter to be a little dry.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that most useful information I read about in Chapter 9 for understanding the history of psychology will be the concepts of Kurt Lewins ideas regarding conflicts and vectors. This chapter discussed Lewins work frequently throughout and explained the several contributions that he made during this lifetime. As well as, he talked about how much of an impact he made as a social psychologist during his lifetime.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds on and relates to previous chapters because he discusses perceptions and learning, as do other chapters we have read. As well as, sensory information is also discussed throughout this chapter too. Several concepts are built on one another as each chapter goes on because without one of these psychologists another one might not have discovered what they had discovred.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about the way we preceive things and how we perceive them. This chapter talked about perception and how we as humans can perceive different stimuli. I enjoy reading about ideas involving perceptions because its interesting to figure how why we perceived different stimuli in different ways. As well as, if everyone perceives things in the same way or if we all perceive them differently and why that is. How does perception impact us and the way we think?
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
As stated above, I thought about how perception is such a powerful thing. How do we perceive the things around us? How could our perceptions change or how do they differ from other peoples perceptions? Do people perceive stimuli differently now then they use to? Does it change over time, and if so how come? Can we change our perceptions? Do our perceptions tell us about ourselves? Why was perception such an interesting topic to so many researchers of that time?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Terms: perception, stimuli, Max Wertheimer, Gestalt psychology, Von Restoff Effect, Hedwig Von Restoff, Kurt Lewin, conflict, vectors, avoidance-avoidance conflict, approach-appraoch conflict, approach-avoidance conflict, figure ground, grouping by proximity and similarity, good continuation and closure
1a) What did you find interesting?
I liked reading about the gestalt organizing principles.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I feel at some point everyone’s been pretty intrigued by optical illusions and I thought it was cool that I got to read about them in college. The principles of proximity and similarity didn’t really seem that interesting. The principle of good continuation was where it started getting interesting, because that’s where you start getting into the inferences the mind makes. I thought the part about closure was interesting, because you could perceive the example figure feasibly many different ways, but most people view it exactly the same because it is the easiest conclusion for the brain to come to.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I thought a little bit about the Prägnanz.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought this was interesting, because this relates back to Morgan’s Canon of Parsimony. I think it’s interesting that this man had a rule that stated the simplest explanation is probably the best, and that the human brain actually perceives things that way. I then wonder if the brain works on this ‘simplest explanation’ framework, why have people had some of the amazing thoughts that they’ve had. Particle theory is what I thought about initially. Our eyes can’t come close to detecting individual atoms, and that seems like far from the simplest way to explain how things work. I understand how they discovered atoms; it just seems odd when considering the brain operates on this law of simplicity.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I was interested by the Zeigarnik effect.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was interesting to me because I like to think of things I learn about in practical terms. This described phenomena stated that memory is better for incomplete tasks than complete tasks. I would like to improve my memory. I think maybe if I separate my assigned readings into different segments, that interruption will help me remember the material. However, that would be breaking the reading into sections, and the interruption is crucial to the phenomenon, so I may have to just stop reading after I get engaged. I haven’t worked out the logistics yet, I just thought the effect was interesting.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I wasn’t really interested in the section about apparent motion.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I grew up with movies and I understand that they are a sequence of still frames that are played in a fluent succession. I know that is interesting of itself, but as I already get it, I found it kind of boring to read about Wertheimer’s research.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most important thing I can take away from this chapter is that our perception of reality and reality itself are two different things. This is a very interesting topic to read about and it’s a thought-provoking subject.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
The first part of the chapter they talked about breaking things down to their simplest components, but then said that you can only do so to a certain extent, as to not jeopardize their form-quality. This reminded me of the differing views of structuralists and functionalists, arguing that you need to understand things for their various parts and components, but you also need to see how they work together to form one thing that is different than the sum of the individual parts. They also talked about parsimony, which was mentioned back in the Darwin chapter when talking about comparative psychology, and the broad concept of sensation and perception was mentioned back in the chapter about Wundt when he was conducting studies on the topic.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about the geographical environment and the behavioral environment.
7b) Why?
I watched a TED talks the other day, and the man giving the lecture talked about why we evolved to see color, so that we may be able to identify threats easier. He then talked about the ability to make inferences about things seen on a paper or a projector to be a higher cognitive function and to be one of the more important components of consciousness. He talked about how we evolved to see what we needed to see to increase our chances of survival instead of seeing the world exactly the way it is. I recall reading about Von Frisch’s study of honeybees and the fact that their visual spectrum is different than ours and I wonder why we didn’t evolve to see more of the colors that bees can, for example.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Well we are going over sensation and perception in the intro class that I T.A. for, so I was relating a lot of this material to the material we cover in class. I was also thinking about a couple TED talks that I watched the other day that talked about illusions and how the mind perceives what is most beneficial for it to perceive instead of what’s actually there.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
gestalt organizing principles, proximity, similarity, good continuation, closure, Prägnanz, Zeigarnik effect, apparent motion, geographical environment, behavioral environment,
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought the beginning of the chapter was interesting because it talked about Gestalt psychology. I did not know what Gestalt psychology was until I read this chapter. I think it is pretty neat that it deals with physics because whether we realize it or not, physics is a huge element in our every day life. We use physics to determine gravity, velocity and much more. I just thought it was interesting how psychology and physics were combined to make one big science.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the section about perception to be interesting. It talked about how we organize our perceptions. This topic related to a previous chapter in the book that discussed how mental processes can organize and sort into different categories. Koffka was contributor to this study because he made a differentiation between reality and our perceived reality.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Kurt Lewin was interesting because he continued on with the Gestalt approach to learning. This was interesting because he took someone's approach and expanded with it with his own interests. His theory was based on the concept of life space. This discussed the factors that influence a person's at a certain moment.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Overall, I found this chapter to be pretty interesting. The one section that would be my least favorite, was the section about cognitive learning. It just did not click with me or spark much interest because it was bland and hard for me to get excited about unlike the rest of the chapter.
5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding how the Gestalt approach contributed to psychology would be important because it combines two well-known sciences. I think understanding how physics can be applied to psychology is important too because it makes you think about things in a more complex way.
6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
In one of the previous chapters it talked about mental processes and how the mind organizes them into categories. I think this chapter relates to that chapter because this chapter discussed perception and how we can organize it.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about perception. I find perception to be very interesting and since perception has been mentioned in quite a few chapters, I feel that there are more ways we could study and research perception. That interests me because that to me means there is much more we could learn about it.
8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I just thought about every day life and how physics applies to every day life. I even thought about perception and how what we see may be different that what others see.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Gestalt Psychology, Kurt Lewin, Life Space, Koffka, perception
J.P.
Please read chapter 9. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
A topic that I found to be interesting was Franz Brentano and act psychology. He basically was stating that psychology should be using empirical instead of using the study of the mind just to view contents. He was stating that we should be visualize the act of perceiving and how the brain operates to create these experiences. I think that it was interesting because I view it as we make our own perceptions, we think how we would in certain situations and that is how we should be studied upon, not being told of how to perceive because the brain is supposed to be thinking in one certain way. I feel like this would give psychology more freedom to work with, this would state that the brain can work anyway to arrive at a solution to an event, the psychology would be knowing how the brain went through a certain thought process to come to the conclusion.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Another thing that I found to be interesting was the idea of apparent motion that was studied by Max Wertheimer. The example of what he studied had to do with projectors and the two lights blinking. How they blink make it seem like there is only one light moving and blinking on and off creating a motion. He then did different test with three lights and so on to see how the human eye perceives the tricks that are able to be put on them and it was with something as simple as switching which light blinked at a certain time. I thought this was interesting because it just showed how our perception can be changed instantly without us knowing that it is being tricked by something that is offsetting the perception. For example, if I was not to be told that the projectors have two lights taking turns of blinking on, I would assume that it was just one and how the projector slides the motion pictures I would also assume that is why it seemed like there was a blinking light. The most interesting thing that I found in the study of this was not the study itself, but how easy we can be tricked with simple changes as that.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The section of perceptual organization is another thing that I found interesting. I found this to be interesting because it was talking about how we use proximity (objects in pairs), similarity (similar objects) and good continuation (objects with the same pattern in a line) to determine how we would group objects together. It also brought up if there were no similarities or just objects that are incomplete, we just fill them in to make a “good figure” also known as closure. I thought this all to be interesting because we do not really realize that we group things like these and we do not need to be taught to think this way, it is a phenomenon that just happens. I think that is what I find to be interesting, it just happens and it happens to about everyone, so it shows that without being taught certain things we all have similar thoughts when it comes to grouping things together. It would go along with choosing what to wear, you want something that matches so you look decent in the attire. Everyone knows what matches and what does not, so we would use similarity just because it seems like the thing to do, so it is interesting because it comes so natural to us but it was studied into more depth saying there was more to it.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
One thing that I did not find to be very interesting was when the chapter was talking about Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler and the part when it was stating that Koffka brought the idea of Gestalt psychology to America. I did not find this interesting because we see time after time all these ideas coming from Germany and European countries, but there is not many ideas that originating from America. If there were ideas that originate in America and spread to Europe, I would find that to be interesting due to it being something that was different than all the other ideas and how they are being spread. I do think it was a bit shocking that the ideas that were coming from Germany and spreading to America were happening during the time of World War I. I find this to be shocking because we thought that Germany was this huge evil force and they must be put to a stop because they are trying to expand and take over the world, but we are allowing German psychologists to bring ideas and spread them in America.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most important thing that is coming from this chapter is the Gestalt psychology and the idea that we should be seeing how the brain perceives certain events and comes to certain conclusions. I thought this was important because it was not stating that we need to change anything to see if the brain thinks the way we are expecting it to, it is just having a situation then studying how the brain reacts to it without saying that there is anything expected. We are looking at the how more instead of the what.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
It built off of other chapters because it took some of the ideas that the psychologists had in those chapters about how to study the brain, where they would create an atmosphere for it and set it up to have it think the way that they wanted and expected it to. Instead, this chapter incorporated that concept and broadened the idea saying study how the brain gets to the assumptions and conclusions, instead of just stating what was the conclusion there is more to be studied with brain development by studying how it comes up with the solutions that it does.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to know more about behavioral v geographical environments. I know what I perceive to be the environment, but I do not understand fully if that is due to behavioral or if it is how everyone perceives it because it is geographical. I would like to know more detail about the two with more examples, then this would lead me to conclude what is the difference and then I can understand how I think about the environment.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I would like to know why America allowed the spread of the Gestalt psychology during the time of World War I? If we were not supposed to trust the Germans and side with the allies during this time period, why would we allow the Germans to bring over an idea that we would use for educating those that will adapt more ideas deriving from Gestalt psychology, but we were not supposed to trust them because they wanted to spread their ideas and take over the world, or that is what the Americans during that time period believed and it is still an argument to today.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Act psychology, Franz Brentano, empirical, apparent motion, Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler, Gestalt psychology, perceptual organization, similarity, proximity, good continuation, closure,
1a) What did you find interesting?
Principles of Perceptual Organization
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because it provided pictures to help illustrate figure-ground. I also found it interesting that only one perception could occur at a time. While looking at the pictures I understood what it meant. It is sometimes easier to understand a term or concept when examples are provided. Edgar Rubin was the first person to describe figure-ground. This took place in 1915. Rubin described these figures as “distinct features that enable them to be isolated from backgrounds. Individuals believe the border “belongs” to the particular figure. However there is another image presented behind the main figure. Individuals’ perceptions are switching rapidly from one image to another. However individuals can only notice one perception at a time. Lastly, what I found interesting is the FedEx example that was mentioned. It gives you a hint to look for the arrow, I have never noticed this before.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Kohler on Insight in Apes
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because it dealt with the animals behaviors. I am always interested in learning about anything dealing with behaviors. Also, I found it interesting that after Kohler disagreed with Thorndike’s conclusion towards the puzzle box experiment. Thorndike believed that learning resulted from the process of trail and “accidental success”. However Kohler believed that learning and problem solving was a step-by-step process. Kohler was able to define insight to label his process thoughts. Insight was defined as “a sudden problem solution that occurred when the individuals reorganized the elements of the problem situation into a new configuration”. Kohler used this label to help him conduct his research with Apes. He was determined not to make the same “mistakes” as Thorndike. After Kohler finished his insight experiment, he was challenged by the American psychologists. They believed Kohler had a trial-and error evidence.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Wertheimer on Productive Thinking
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because this section’s focus is towards children. Also I found this interesting because Wertheimer demonstrated good ideas towards thinking and problem solving. Wertheimer believed that “children would be more productive if they truly understood the concept of the area”. Wertheimer wanted to advice teachers’ to start with simple concrete examples. This allows the children to become used to the concept before being challenged right away. Wertheimer provided an example dealing with children learning arithmetic. The teacher was explaining how to find the areas of parallelograms. However the second day of learning this concept the teacher provided tricky questions and the children knew they had not learned this yet. I think it is important that the teacher makes sure the majority of her students understand what she is teaching before trying to confuse them with tricky questions. They are just going to become frustrated and not want to learn this concept anymore.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The Orgins and Early development of Gestalt psychology
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
This section was towards the beginning of the chapter. I did not find this interesting because I found the information to be long and dull. However, it is important to have an understanding of Gestalt psychology for this particular chapter. It discusses how Gestalt psychology was found and it was involved with philosophical traditions. Otherwise I do not remember much from this section because it was so dull and boring.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter demonstrates how Gestalt psychology was introduced to American. I think this is important to understand how this became known. I think the learning and thought processes of individuals is important to known to understand the history of psychology. The thought process (cognitive) is a big part to psychology. It is important to know individuals who came up with concepts and terms dealing with this. Also I think the sections discusses behaviorism is important to know as well. It is important to also known individuals who started to notice particular behaviors. How would one understand psychology if they were introduced to information dealing with the thought process and behaviors of animals/people?
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
In the previous chapter it discusses about intelligence and applied psychology. I think this chapter relates to the previous chapter because it is now going beyond just intelligence. It is focusing on thought process and particular behaviors resulting from that. Also all chapters are going to relate to one another because it’s an ongoing process of information. Individuals are being brought up from previous chapters because they have influenced other individuals work.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Behavioral Versus Geographical Environments
7b) Why?
I found it interesting to try to learn the difference between the two terms. However, I do not think there was enough information provided. Therefore, I would like to learn more about these two terms. Koffka was known as the individual who made a distinction between the two. Behavioral environment refers to the environment as perceived. A geographical environment refers to the physical environment. The example provided focuses on an individual who has ridden across the Lake of Constance. While looking at it in a behavioral environment, you would focus on it being a wide open plain. If looking at it in a geographical environment, you would focus on the lake being able to easily crack and cause one to drown. I think another example dealing with these two terms would help me understand a little more.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading about perceptual organization, I thought about the various examples from other classes and emails I have looked at. In my social psychology class we briefly discussed figure-ground illustrations. I do remember looking at the wine class illustration. The background of the wine glass shows two people facing each other. Also while reading about behavioral versus geographical environments I tried to think of my own examples. I found it difficult to come up with my own examples that would demonstrate the difference between the two.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Figure-ground, Edgar Rubin, behavioral environment, geographical environment, Koffka, Thorndike, Kohler, insight, Max Wertheimer, and Gestalt psychology,
1a) What did you find interesting?
Kohler on insight in apes
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this section interesting because it discussed Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment, which I had found interesting prior to this. Kohler was showing his view on problem solving and discussing what he did not agree with .
2a) What did you find interesting?
Wertheimer on productive thinking
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because it is so applicable to everyone whether you’re in elementary school or college. Starting off with simple examples to explain something allows an individual to think about it in a more complex manner once understood.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Zeigarnik Effect
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting because it fits into my life in a way. Especially when it comes to school, remembering information for exams. Once the exam is over the majority of the information goes along with it.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Field Theory
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I do not know why I did not find this section interesting but I found it hard to concentrate and none of the information really struck me as interesting.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that in this chapter all the information was equally as important, nothing stood out more than anything else. Except for maybe the idea of productive thinking, because some of those ideas could help out education.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
There were sections where information was compared to previous chapters. Thorndike’s puzzle experiment was discussed in this chapter.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
The zeigarnik effect
7b) Why?
I just found this section to be the most interesting so I’d be willing to learn more about it.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I honestly did not think about much while reading this chapter, I found it to be a little dry and boring.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
The Zeigarnik effect, Thorndike, productive thinking
1) I found Wertheimer's study in apparent motion very interesting. He studied how people perceived flashing lights. When he flashed two different lights at 60 millisecond intervals, his subjects perceived that it was one light moving from side to side rather than two lights flashing on and off. Another study showed that with three lights, the outside two would flash first and then the middle would follow, which subjects interpreted as the two outside lights moving together to form the third. Because of this, he disliked the term apparent motion and instead called it the phi phenomenon.
2) I found the debate between Wundt and Carl Stumpf on the perception of musical tones fun to read about. Stumpf argued that trained musicians would be better able to judge differences in musical tones than Wundt's trained observers. When listening to two pure tones, it creates a new tone that seems to be different than its two components. Stumpf argued that his musicians would be better observers and that the phenomenon resisted analysis. I tend to agree with Stumpf because musicians have basically been trained their whole lives to listen to intonation, and laboratory observers would not have the same exposure as the musicians.
3) I was very surprised by the Zeignarik effect. I've heard before that it is good to break up studying into chunks of time, but have been told that interruption was bad. This effect showed the contrary, that subjects had better memory of their tasks when they were interrupted, even during the most involved times. This is due to the unrelieved tension of the incomplete task.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn't find gestalt psychology all that interesting in general. Some of the experiments and studies were interesting, but all the little details and processes don't really appeal to me very much.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think understanding that what we perceive to be reality may not actually be reality is very useful. We can only trust our senses so much, making it important to find out what is really going on. This helps us understand why past psychologists may not have understood the whole picture or made conclusions based on false perceptions.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter continues to give examples that show that we do not always see or perceive what we think we do. In earlier chapters, we talked about eyesight and how we see color as well as depth-perception.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I'd like to Zeignarik effect because it could potentially help studying, and being a college student, could provide very helpful. As I said earlier, I did not expect interruption to help memory, but rather be an obstacle in retaining and recalling information later. This was surprising to discover.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Something I've thought about recently in regards to perception is that computer screens are really a bunch of pixels, 0's, and 1's thrown together to give the impression of a solid mass. Basically, everything I've typed here is a long string of code. It's a little mind-blowing.
9) Wertheimer, apparent motion, phi phenomenon, Carl Stumpf, Zeignarik effect, gestalt psychology.
Chapter 9
1)What did you find interesting? Why?
A topic that I found to be very interesting was Gestalt psychology and its founder Max Wertheimer. He was born in Prague and initially studied law before switching to philosophy. Somewhere around 1910, Wertheimer became fascinated by the perceptual problem of apparent motion. The phenomenon was well known at the time and the basis for the newly created motion picture industry. For example when there is an illusion of a moving picture from many drawings being flipped through. In other words, separate sensory events occur, but the perception is that of a single continuous event. Perceived motion was referred to as phi phenomenon by Wertheimer. He disliked the term apparent motion because it implied that the motion was not really perceived. I have always been fascinated by these events so I thought it was neat that he was too.
2)What did you find interesting? Why?
Another topic I found interesting were the principles of perceptual organization and how it tied into the world of psychology. One of our most basic perceptual tendencies is to separate whole figures from their backgrounds. It provides the foundation for all object perception. There are three principles that go with perceptual organization: proximity, similarity, and good continuation. Proximity is a tendency to perceive that objects in close proximity “belong” together. Similarity is the tendency to perceive that objects resembling each other “belong” together. And finally, good continuation is a tendency to organize perceptions in a smoothly flowing direction.
3)What did you find interesting? Why?
The final topic I found interesting was Kohler’s insight on apes and the research done for “The Mentality of Apes”. I honestly just read the title and I was immediately interested. Kohler and his family lived on Tenerife from 1913 to 1920, but most of the research that was reported was completed within the first full year on the island. Kohler disagreed with Thorndike’s theory of problem solving being a mechanical, step-by-step process. Instead he believed, in keeping with his gestalt orientation, he argued that solutions to problems occur when individuals can view the entire problem field and rearrange the elements of the problem into a new configuration. He referred to this as insight.
4)What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why?
I found everything very interesting in this chapter. I truly enjoyed reading it and I would like to learn more about the Gestalt Approach. The only negative thing I have to say about the chapter is that it is written very bland and dry so it makes it difficult to carry on unless it is super interesting, which most of this was so I did not have as much trouble as I have in the past.
5)What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I believe it is very important to know the different research approaches, like Kohler and his insight in apes. He looked back in the past and disagreed with something, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. He decided to find answers for himself. This should be true nowadays. If we find something we do not agree with, I would hope we would go searching for the right answers so we can share our discoveries with the world.
6)How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter built on the previous chapter by building on the ideas of Thorndike and his experiments with the puzzle box. Like I stated above Kohler wanted to learn something new/different so he discovered it for himself.
7)What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would really like to learn more about the principles of perception and gestalt psychology because I am very intrigued and interested in what those sections had to say.
8)What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I wondered what it would have been like to be the first person to notice these types of illusions and to find them because they were there on purpose, or just because you saw things differently then everyone else.
9)Terminology: Apparent Motion, Perceived Motion, Phi Phenomenon, Object Perception, Perceptual Organization, Proximity, Similarity, Good Continuation, Insight
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the idea of apparent motion quite interesting in this chapter. When learning about the perception of a single continuous event that was happening rather than the two separate sensory events kind of made me think a little harder about what the idea was trying to convey. This idea of apparent motion was a creation for the motion picture industry and it helped new ideas form. It is interesting that we as humans perceive whole and meaningful figures rather than single small elements.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The idea of distinction between behavioral and geographical environments (aka the distinction between reality and the world as we perceive it) that Koffka came up with was kind of interesting; just because the mini story they give us to actually understand the two perceptions made it easier to understand rather than me trying to read a lengthy paragraph or three about the two. This made me think about it more and actually grasp the concept of behavioral and geographical environments.
When a situation like this occurs with me, I tend to look more on the geographical environment just because I like to be more of a person who thinks about the real world rather than a person can perceive it.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The section about field theory, equilibrium, and Kurt Lewin was pretty interesting. Figuring out when a person has reached all of his or her needs in life to be satisfied that he or she has reached a state of equilibrium is kind of interesting. The only time I have really heard about equilibrium is in my high school physics class. Finding this in a psychology book is quite interesting and I never thought that I would find this here.
Learning about the field theory itself was pretty interesting, trying to understand a persons’ behavior and trying to figure out all of the forces acting upon that person at a given moment was kind of like space talk for me. For a second while reading this section I thought I was reading my science text books but when I find such things like this in a psychology book it really gets me thinking about how many things can actually go together like science in general paired up with psychology.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
One topic that I found not so interesting was the topic about Wertheimer and his productive thinking. This area of the chapter just made me kind of space out while reading it and I feel as if I did not gather as much information from the paragraphs as I should have. When reading about math and parallelograms it makes me think about the math classes I had to take from middle school thru my freshmen year of college and I really did not like those classes because I was not a great math solver. So when it comes down to reading about it or any mathematical equations I just freeze up and skim over it due to the fact that I was never really interested in it when I was younger.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I believe that when reading about the different perceptions a person has on life can help us understand the history of psychology a little bit. Due to the fact that a persons’ mind has evolved so much from the creation of man to the little computers that our brains are now can show us how much we have grown. Along with this idea when we have looked at perception our perceptions have changed so much and it depends on the culture we were raised in. Some people might not be educated enough in the area to understand the differences so I think understanding the ideas of perception would help me understand more about the history of psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter relates to the other chapters simply by stating what we have already read, in the other chapters that we have come across the ideas of sensory information, to other psychologists that have been introduced in one chapter we have read about in this chapter. It gives us a great understanding of how important these men and women were in the field of psychology not just in one area but in the entire spectrum of things. When I came across Wundt and Kant I knew that those men were very important if their names came up more than once in the book and by this it helps me think about the previous chapters so it gets my mind flowing.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to try and learn more about gestalt psychology as a whole and try and find more information than what the book has to offer. I am still a little shaky about the understanding of what it is about so that is another reason why I would like to do more research on my own time about the subject. Maybe I can come up with some easier explanation of what it is. It seems like a great topic to read about in the book, but with my mind trying to retain as much information as I can about this whole chapter it gets me locked into different areas and not just thinking about gestalt psychology.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
During this chapter I kept thinking about my high school science classes and how it related to the chapter. Even though science that is taught in high school is totally different than a psychology class it still made me question how much is actually put together.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Apparent Motion, Behavioral Environments, Geographical Environments, Koffka, Wertheimer, Productive Thinking, Kurt Lewin, Field Theory, Equilibrium, Gestalt Psychology,
1a) What did you find interesting?
Figure-ground segregation.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The whole section on principles of perceptual organization was interesting but once I read more on the figure-ground topic it provided me with more information that I didn’t already know. Figure-ground segregation is a Gestalt organizing principle that says the fundamental perceptual tendency is to separate figures from their background. Rubin specifically believed that figures have distinct features that enable them to be away from their backgrounds. The one example that I will always remember is that idea that the border belongs to the figure while the ground extends behind the figure. You can adjust the way you show the figure and one what type of background. If you make it a black background it can’t be perceived as anything other than a unformed background. I still would like a little more information about this topic and why figure-ground segregation matters.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Kohler on insight in Apes.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Kohler came up with the mentality of apes and he focused on Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment. Thorndike founded and believed that learning and problem solving involves trial and accidental success. But, Kohler believes that problem-solving is a step-by-step process. He believed that solutions to problems occur when individuals can see the entire problem and rearrange the elements into a new form. A term that he used to label the process he came up with was insight. A problem he found with Thorndike’s puzzle-box experiment was that animals can’t perceive the entire problem-solving situation so they can’t see how the components work together in the whole process. Just like my first topic I would like to learn more about his research and insight in apes.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Wertheimer on productive thinking.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
This section was also interesting because it had to deal with the topic of problem-solving like Kohler and Thorndike. He wrote a book called Productive Thinking and sent it to get published before he passed away. His ideas were how to teach children about geometry. Wertheimer believed that children are asked to memorize the rules and formulas and don’t allow them to understand the concepts behind what they are memorizing. So he thought that children would be more productive thinkers if they can understand the concept of area or the other terms need to learn geometry. Once they knew more information and got more insight about area they were able to solve the area with no problem. Overall Wertheimer believed that true understanding involved reconstruction of the problem so they could gain insight to get the solution.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The Zeigarnik effect was the least interesting.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
This was probably the least interesting from the chapter just because it was confusing and I didn’t understand why or how they came up with this idea. Overall, this effect is saying that memory is better for incomplete rather than complete tasks and in my opinion I find that untrue but for Zeigarnik he believed different.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? This whole chapter was useful because it was all related to Gestalt psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? The section on Kohler talked about Thorndike’s puzzle box experiments and we learned about Thorndike in Chapter 7. Kohler got his ideas from Thorndike and explained the problems with Thorndike’s puzzle box experiments compared to his ideas.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? I would like to learn more about field theory.
7b) Why? Field theory was developed by Lewin. He believed that understanding a person’s behavior you need to know about all of the forces that may be acting on that person at that or any other given moment. Just this sentence made me interested in Lewin and his work especially this theory so I would like to find more information about it.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? When reading this chapter I was thinking about how each psychologist has their own ideas but how they may go off of one another. For example; Wertheimer got some of his ideas on productive thinking from Kohler and his work.
9) Wertheimer, Kohler, Lewin, Gestalt psychology, Thorndike puzzle-box experiment, Zeigarnik, productive thinking, figure-ground segregation, Zeigarnik effect.
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Wolfgang Kohler to be interesting, not just his work but also because of the historical time he did it in. He was accused of being a German spy when he was studying apes on the island of Tenerife during World War I. It’s a claim that has not been able to be proven. The fact that he wrote an anti-Nazi article in 1933 leads me to believe that he wouldn’t have wasted much time spying for his country. The Nazis interfered with the University and drove out the Jewish professors, with other scientists leaving the country as well. Kohler refused to sign a loyalty oath to Hitler and moved to the United States. This is important because it shows a shift in educational personnel from Germany to other parts of the world. This shift would eventually lead to America building the Atomic Bomb and ending World War II.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Staying with Kohler, I found his studies on apes to be very interesting. This is where he coined the term insight. While observing an ape using two bamboo sticks, one of Kohler’s assistants witnessed the ape figuring out how he could use both of the sticks together to get a banana that was out of the apes reach. Insight is the sudden problem solution that occurs when the individual reorganizes the elements of the problem into a new configuration. In this observation we find the ape discovering a way in which to use the sticks together to get the banana. This conclusion has been questioned. It is thought to be just as much trial and error as it is insight.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Kurt Lewin to have had an interesting life and career. He was a war hero for Germany in World War I. Being a hero did not protect him as the second World War loomed ahead. He moved to America, eventually working for a research institute connected with the University of Iowa. Lewin developed three different styles of leadership: Authoritarian, Democratic, and Laissez-Faire. The study that he did showed that the democratic method produced the best results for the group. He also found that things fell apart in the group if it changed from Democratic to Authoritarian. This is important because he took this and applied it to government styles.
4a) What didn’t you find interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I found max Wertheimer and his work with apparent motion to be uninteresting. This phenomenon I found a little boring. The interesting part of his life is that he was one of the many scientists to flee Germany for the United States. Being Jewish, he saw what was coming and was able to move his family to the U.S.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I believe the work of Kurt Lewin will help the most in understanding the history of psychology. His field theory goes a long way into explaining how to understand a person’s behavior. The concept of life space is important in understanding behavior. Life space is the field where a person operates; it includes all the factors that influence a person’s behavior at any given time. I think his leadership styles are important to understand how people behave the way they do in groups and why they behave in a particular way.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I think this chapter relates to previous ones because we are seeing what is happening to the psychologists in Germany. Germany seemed to be the birthplace of the psychology movement and now psychologists are being run out of Germany due to their race or beliefs. Germany’s loss is the rest of the world’s gain.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about Kurt Lewin and his leadership styles. I have learned about this in other classes and always thought it was interesting. The fact that he worked in Iowa is also interesting and would be worth researching more.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
It seems like much of what we read about in the history of psychology ties into Germany and Hitler’s movement. Even if I didn’t think that before, it is inescapable after this chapter. Hitler is taking some of his most intelligent people and letting them leave because they do not fit in to his “perfect race,” I believe he did this because he did not want to see any proof that he was wrong. He cut off his own hands by doing this but nobody ever claimed he was sane.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
• Wolfgang Kohler
• Kurt Lewin
• Max Wertheimer
• Insight
• Styles of leadership (Authoritarian, Democratic, Laissez-Faire
• Apparent motion
• Field Theory
1a) What did you find interesting?
Max Wertheimer.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought that Max Wertheimer was interesting because he found a new world of psychology. I also liked how he looked at apparent motion. I thought that it was interesting that when the two small lights were flashing that we perceive it that it is only one light that continuously moved. Going along with apparent motion he seen that we use our sensory information to explain what was going on and he coined the term phi phenomenon. I also thought that he was a courageous man. At the time of all of his studies and work, World War 1 was going on in Germany. Hitler was then in rule and started his reign of abolishing the Jewish race. Wertheimer was Jewish himself and had much to say. I do respect the fact that he told everyone that if they wanted to get rid of Jewish scientists, then they could say good-bye to German science which was true because it did hurt the progression in the world of Psychology.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Wertheimer and Productive Thinking.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found that Wertheimer’s insight on thinking was very important in the school setting. He had visited a class and the teacher was only providing examples on how to do one thing and not the other so the students were at a disadvantage in their learning. He put forth the idea that as teachers they should start off with a simple concrete idea and then go further in. If teachers did this then the students are better able to understand other ideas.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Kurt Lewin as a Developmental Psychologist
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
When Lewin came to the United States he was seen as a developmental psychologist. When others looked at children and their problems, they would look at the environment. Lewin believed that we should look at the personality characteristics of a child and how they react to the environment.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The beginning section of the chapter and when Gestalt Psychology started.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I thought that it was just lacking in interest. It didn’t begin the chapter very well and was a little hard to get my attention to keep reading.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that the perception section in the chapter is very useful. It helped show us where we begin and the development of perception.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
In ways, I think that there were a couple of ideas that built off or touched base on previous ideas. However, there were a lot of new topics that future chapters could build off of.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Lewin and his ideas on Developmental Psychology
7b) Why?
I really liked his ideas on developmental psychology. For me going into the teaching field, this will help on how to help kids in the classroom.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought a lot about Pavlov and his ideas on developmental psychology.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Max Wertheimer
apparent motion
phi phenomenon
Kurt Lewin
Developmental psychologist
B.H.
1a) b) The principles of perceptual organization interested me.This interested me because we have perceptual organizations that play tricks on our minds. We call this figure-ground segregation created by Edgar Rubin. Figures have diverse landscapes that allow them to be isolated from their backgrounds. The margin seems to fit to the figure, for example, while the ground seems to range behind the figure, but this perceptual impression is a solid even though we know otherwise. The figure is more notable than the ground seems to have a substance that is lacking in the ground. Three other organizing principles illustrated in the text related to Wertheimer’ paper called “Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms.” These principles were proximity, similarity and good continuation. If proximity is held persistent, then motivations might be organized according to similarity. We also establish our perceptions in an easily flowing direction which relates to a term called good continuation.
2a) b) Wertheimer’s thoughts on productive thinking interested me because it showed that children would be more creative theorists if they truly understand the concept of area. He observed geometry class and saw that students memorized the rule for finding area but didn’t really get taught the meaning of area. He revisited class with different parallelogram sketches that students could not figure out. His suggestions told teachers to start with simple physical examples. Students could easily grasp the idea that two equal square fields would produce the same amount of crop. Next, rectangular surfaces could be understood as combinations of square fields. With that knowledge, scholars could be shown that any parallelogram could be transferred into a rectangle by chopping off one end and connecting it to the other.
3a) b) I was interested in Lewins work that involved his most famous work in social psychology that involved the studying the penalties of different types of leadership roles. Youthful boys were more operative when lead by a democratic leader than by either an autocratic or a laissez-faire lead. Lewins work also interested me because he wanted his research to contribute to the improvement of society. He studied prejudice and its reduction, in-group loyalty, and the effectiveness of group processes.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Kurt Lewins work interested me but his early life did not interest me as much.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you? I know history is important but it’s a hard read for me so I have to have some examples of work correlated with the history given in the text. Certain theories and approaches interested me but the history bored me.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? After going through numerous chapters in the book, I have come to the conclusion that a lot of philosophers and psychologists are just “theorists” a lot of their work is important but sometimes these ideas and theories are far removed from useful applications.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters? Reading over the different leadership styles compared by Lewin’s research group made me think of social Darwinism from a previous chapter. This chapter explained a Laisez-faire which was basically individualism which related to social Darwinism.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? Studies on perception.
7b) Why? Because I want to know what other tricks our mind can play on us like the figure ground phenomenon.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter? I thought about in school how teachers just want you to memorize the material they give you but they don’t actually want you to “learn” it. In some classes I actually get involved and interested in a topic but the teacher’s just make us memorize it for the test and don’t actually teach it. There needs to be more learning and less memorizing.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post. Max Wertheimer, Principles of Perceptual Organization, figure-ground, proximity, similarity, good continuation, Wertheimer on Productive Thinking, Kurt Lewin, Leadership Styles Compared by Lewin’s Research Group
Next you will be asked what three things from the chapter that you found interesting?
1a) What did you find interesting?
Max Wertheimer
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Well Wertheimer was really the first founder of psychology. I liked that for a period of time he studied word association and the association of that with thinking or cognition. He then became interested in apparent motion which is all about the perception of the light. It’s really two separate lights, but is perceived to be just one. So there are two different ways in which one can determine this sensory change. One is by shifting from left to right, the other is by making a “reasonable inference”, that it moved from point A to B. He had some interesting life experiences as well. He had to flee from Germany due to the Nazi’s.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Kurt Lewin
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found it interesting that like many people, he did not consider himself a gestalt psychologist, but that is what he’s recognized for. He ended up becoming a psychology professor and went on to receive his doctorate. He was also in WWI and fought for Germany because he had a lot of pride for his country. He distinguished that life or one’s environment and their behavior can be different if they are in peaceful or war environments. His biggest contribution seemed to be in empirical research. Field theory is a major contribution of Lewin’s, he felt that you need to know the pressures of a person’s situation or the forces that are going on in order to understand a person’s behavior. Each person has their own life space in which they operate. Lewin used an oval is his topology to depict a person’s state, when they are at equilibrium, they are in a neutral state of mind or are content. Then there are positive valences that are surrounding your goal, and there is a vector which gets your closer to your final goal. So he made many contributions to goals and the struggles surrounding them.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Perception
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I liked learning about all the things we do to organize our brain and perceive the information. Such as figure-ground, so separating an object from the background surrounding it. There’s one important object and you focus on that, but everything else goes blurry or isn’t important. Proximity is when certain items or figures belong or go together. With similarity they are almost organized by pattern. And with the third principle of good continuation they are organized by flowing directions. I liked the examples they had in the book and I’ve always thought those perception things were very different, and we did them in psychology class, but it’s hard to see how it really relates to Psychology. Gestalt Psychologists also believe in Pragnanz which where we try and mirror reality as much as possible.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Cognition and Learning
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I guess I felt that this section could have been incorporated within the psychologists sections instead of creating a separate cognition and learning group. In most of the chapters the main focus was on the psychologists, so it just made it hard to get through because I had to remember the psychologists and other contributions they had contributed to the field.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? Well I read a lot in the section. I guess I learned where Gestalt psychology comes from, but recently in a different class we studied gestalt therapy, and I am still wondering how they relate. My only thing is that in therapy they are trying to get the perceived self to
match one’s real self which aligns with perceptions and how in pragnanz they are getting the perceptions to mirror reality. So now I know that the concept for therapy can come out of a same ideas within the Gestalt ideas.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Well I think this chapter brings in other psychologists and topics we talked about briefly such a Thorndike’s puzzle boxes and Muller as an inspiration for Lewin. I just think the psychologists keep pushing each other to strengthen the field and grow more and more. It’s interesting how they are all working to prove each other wrong, or to expand on the work of a different psychologists, they’re constantly trying to make it better.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I want to learn more about Lewin’s topology
7b) Why?
I think it’s a super interesting concept, but one that would be useful. I think any time we have some conflict going on it would be beneficial to learn what caused a change in our equilibrium and just have a better visual idea of what is going on.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
How did lewin come up with the topology? Would lewin believe that other forces such as environment contribute to behavior? What made Wertheimer’s contributions so significant? How does the gestalts psychology flow with gestalt therapy?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Proximity, figure-ground, similarity, good continuation, pragnanz, kurt Lewin, field theory, life space, topology, equilibrium, valence, vector, Wertheimer, apparent motion
1a) I found Max Wertheimer's study of apparent motion. His analysis of sensory input that led to him becoming the founder of gestalt psychology was a very interesting topic to read about in chapter 9.
1b) The idea behind Wertheimer's study was that we perceive whole figures. The reason he referred to the study of apparent motion as phi phenomenon had to do with him not liking the idea that motion was not perceived. He argued rather that we do in fact perceive motion but the context in which we do is on a whole level rather than on the individual parts that make up the whole. He contended that the individual parts to perceived motion are determined by the whole figure itself and that is why we must refer to it in the context of the whole.
2a) I thought it was interesting that Wetheimer had to take refuge in America due to the Nazi take over of Germany during his years as a psychologist there.
2b) The reason this part of the text was interesting to me had to do with the fact that Hitler had such a limited view of other races that he was willing to lose out on the valuable evolution of science that was coming out of his own country in order to promote an idea of a superior race. Since Wetheimer was Jewish he had to flee Germany in order to save he and his families lives. How sad to think that such a great man was rejected by his own country because of his family lineage.
3a) The thing that was most interesting from chapter 9 was Edgar Rubin's study of figure-ground segregation.
3b) After looking at the illustrations that were used to describe some of the key concepts associated with Rubin's studies, I was really fascinated to learn about his ideas. There were three basic organizing principles that were mentioned. They are proximity which is the closeness of association between two different objects. Based on this proximity, the second principle is applied which is the ideas that the stimuli must be organized according to similarity. The third idea is good continuation. This is the tendency to organize the way we view stimuli into smoothly flowing directions.
4a) I found the part in chapter 9 concerning the Lewin system to be not very interesting.
4b) The reason it was not interesting to me had to do with the outlook that the book had on it. They mention how the diagram can be used to describe almost any event. I feel like the overall usefulness of these diagram is very little. Therefore, reading about it seemed kind of pointless and resulted in learning about it to be of little interest to me.
5) Definitely learning about Wertheimer and his contributions to gestalt psychology will be the most useful to take away from this chapter. I feel that as the founder of this branch of psychology, his works were foundational to the future research in this area that happened as a result. He pioneered a new direction in psychology and I have a lot of respect for someone that could do that.
6) This chapter mainly builds off the previous chapters in how it follows the movement of psychology from Germany to America. Over the past few chapters we have seen how Americans were going to Germany to pursue higher education. With the results of the Nazi movement as well as psychology taking greater hold in America, it's progression to the U.S. coupled with it's acceptance here provided the perfect grounds for the fields advancement. It also follows the time order or temporal precedence of psychology as the focus shifted from other countries to the psychology movement here in the U.S.
7a) I would like to learn how gestalt psychology in the early to mid 1900's influenced modern psychological thought.
7b) We can only learn from the past if it shown how it influences the present. And it is only by observing how the past influences the present that we can hope to learn and prepare for the future. It's great to learn about a topic such as gestalt psychology but if there is no way to show how it applies to present day psychology than we are simply just learning facts.
8) After looking at the different diagrams in figure 9.5 of the chapter, I had some unique thoughts as to why humans perceive things the way they do. My thoughts revolved around the idea of why we can only make out one object at a time when looking at an object that has more than one theme involved in its make-up. I know our vision plays a major role in being able to distinguish objects, I wonder if this influences perception and to what level the human visionary system influences these perceptions.
9) Terms: gestalt psychology, apparent motion, sensory input, perceived motion, figure-ground segregation, proximity, similarity, good continuation, organizing principles, perception.
1a) What did you find interesting?
- Act Psychology: Brentano’s position that psychology should be the study of mental acts, not mental contents; with the perception of some events, for example, one should not analyze it into its elements, but examine the act of perception (how the individual perceives the event and what the event means to the individual). 1b) Why was it interesting to you?
- We have seen in the past that psychology has been focused a lot on an individuals intelligence or IQ rather than the symptomology. Classifying people as morons when there are other factors that could impact how well that person tests. I think it is always important to remember that participants are people, and that the information they receive from a psychologists could potentially impact their life in a negative way. Sympathizing to their humanity and looking into their specific symptoms can help relive some of that trauma, and stigmatization.
2a) What did you find interesting?
- Von Restorff Effect: increased recall of information that stands out in some manner from other to-be-learned information. 2b) Why was it interesting to you?
- I think this is interesting because I can see this in my daily life. I believe that their is actually a principle in cognitive psychology that stats we remember information that we find interesting. Pretending that we find something interesting could help facilitate in learning. (I don’t know the specific principle because I have not yet taken cognitive psych.)
3a) What did you find interesting?
- Dedifferentiation: For Lewin, a process that occurs under stress, in which a person reverses the normal differentiation process and reverts to an earlier, more primitive way of behaving; similar to Freudian regression. 3b) Why was it interesting to you?
- I think this is interesting because it shows the impact that stress can have on someones life. Regression is a fairly severe symptom, and although I’ve never heard of this occurring in real life (mostly because I’m just hearing of it) I think it is interesting that stress can be so detrimental to our mental processes.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
-Topology: Mathematical field of non quantitative spatial geometry, used by Lewin as a basis for his field theory. 4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
- I really don’t like math. So, when I noticed the work mathematical in association to topology I didn’t give it that much attention.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
- Gestalt Organizing Principles: Perceptual principles described by the gestaltists that summarize the ways in which sensory phenomena become organized into whole, meaningful figures. I think this will be important because a lot of Gestalt theories are still widely discussed today, and knowing more information about them can help me be more knowledgable in that subject matter.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
- We are beginning to get into the newer psychology age; as we continue our chronicle ascendence through the psychological time line.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
- I would like to learn more about Valence (For Lewin, term used to describe whether an object is valued by there person (positive valence) or not valued (negative valence)) 7b) Why?
- I think this is an interesting categorical system; however I’m a litter unsure about its quantitative value.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
- There is a definite shift in the concepts presented in this chapter compared to the last few chapters. While reading this I couldn’t help but think of how psychology has changed over the ages in the United States alone.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
-Act Psychology, Von Restorff Effect, Dedifferentiation, Topology, Gestalt Organizing Principle, Valence,
1a) What did you find interesting? 1b) Why was it interesting to you?
One thing that I found interesting was that Kohler left Germany after the other two Gestalt psychologists because he was appalled by the Nazi interference in academia. It always intrigues me that it is usually the founders or early pioneers that are ahead of their time and are not afraid to make a difference. He was strongly against what the Nazis were doing and published in an anti-Nazi article while Hitler was in power.
2a) What did you find interesting? 2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Another thing that I found interesting was Behavioral vs. Geographical Environment section. I thought it was interesting that there was an important distinction between the worlds as it is in reality or geographical environment, and the world, as we perceive it, or behavioral environment. It was believed that our behavioral environment determines how we act. This was an intriguing idea to me because obviously it makes sense now that we act a lot based on how we feel about something. I see this idea happen a lot in everyday life. For example, I think that the world is out to get me; therefore I act by feeling sorry for myself. When in reality, the world is not out to get me but because I am too upset in this moment to realize logically what is happening.
3a) What did you find interesting? 3b) Why was it interesting to you?
A third thing that I found interesting was in section on the Zeigarnik Effect. I could definitely relate to Lewin’s logic of the waiter forgetting all of the orders after the bill was settled. For me, this is just like how a lot of my life works. I study for exams and unless it is a comprehensive exam, I usually forget majority of the information or even when I teach a fitness class, I’ll go and teach another and forget what I had just taught to my previous class because my attention is focused on a different class.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Something that was not as interesting to me was on apparent motion; to me it was hard to picture the flashing lights and how the affects worked because I could not see them. I prefer when things are image based on description to either at least have some kind of picture or be able to fully see what is happening.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think learning about the three main founders (Wertheimer, Koffka, and Kohler) of Gestalt psychology is very important. However, I think that Kurt Lewin left a strong mark on the history of psychology as well. He was the one to come up with field theory, which anyone studying psychology knows that field work is mandatory beyond undergraduate school, the different conflicts approaches, and many more of his ideas are well known and used today in psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds off of the others that primed our minds with the ideas of Gestalt psychology emerging. Psychology used to be looked at through at structuralism approach and then taken to the functionalism approach a couple chapters back. Research in psychology was taken into fields of education and in this chapter also brings up Kurt Lewin who is one of the first people to dive into social psychology and the different leadership styles.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about Wertheimer on Productive thinking. I want to know more about his work and what he accomplished with this idea of Productive thinking of digging deeper into learning concepts. I think it was interesting that he brought this idea up and believe that without it, I would not have been able to learn a lot of concepts without them being broken down deeper into what exactly each step means.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Before reading, I honestly questioned what exactly Gestalt psychology is. I thought a lot about how World War 2 greatly influenced the psychologists and academia. I wondered if many other professors got upset and emigrated or if they stayed in Germany? How different would things have been if Gestalt psychology were growing after or before the war?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Kohler, Behavioral vs. Geographical Environment, Zeigarnik Effect, Lewin, apparent motion, Wertheimer, Koffka, Conflict approaches, Field theory, Social psychology, and Wertheimer on Productive thinking, Structuralism, Functionalism, and Leadership styles.
1a) What did you find interesting?
Kohler and his ape study
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I enjoy reading about scientists questioning other’s work because it usually yields more information than just the original study. Kohler questioning Thorndike’s cat-in-a-box experiments is a perfect example of this. Kohler thought that cats acted sporadically and had a trial-and-error system of freeing themselves because they could not see the entire problem field. They only could see a small portion of the entire apparatus, therefore were unable to understand how free themselves. He set out to prove Thorndike wrong by giving his subjects, apes, the entire problem field. He put a banana out of reach of the ape and the only way to get it down was to attach two bamboo sticks together to knock it down. Kohler insisted that apes would be able to figure it out relatively quick. He was disappointed with his results. Even his smartest ape had many trials resulting in errors before figuring out how to get the banana thus strengthening Thorndike’s research.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Field Theory
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I think the reason I liked field theory so much is that it makes a lot of sense, but was also a little difficult to understand. I’m not sure if I fully understand it yet. Comprehension is difficult because Lewin uses strange terms to describe some of the components. Basically field theory is the idea that humans are constantly in flux with conflicts and resolutions in their life. We are in constant search for equilibrium. For instance we feel conflict when we are hungry and our search for equilibrium begins by us getting some Pablos. Hunger is the conflict in our life space, a Pablo’s burrito is our positive valence or solution. Our vector is our desire and direction needed to take to achieve equilibrium, but we sometimes have barriers like lack of cash or transportation to Pablos. These are negative valences. We have several conflict types: approach-approach conflict, avoidance-avoidance conflict, or approach-avoidance conflict. Approach-approach conflict is when our goal has two equally strong options like whether to choose chicken or a steak burrito. Avoidance-avoidance conflicts is basically picking the lesser of the two evils. For instance if Pablos only has their two hottest salsas available. Approach-avoidance conflict is when there are equal pros and cons to a decision like getting the hottest salsas because they are delicious and make you much more manly, but the lavatory repercussions are often diabolical
3a) What did you find interesting?
Wertheimer and Productive Thinking
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The best part about reading this section was the learning about the kids that did not even try to figure out the problem. They made no honest effort and immediately claimed they could not do it and asked for teacher assistance. He took a classroom of children who have just learned how to find the area of basic shapes like triangle, rectangles, and circles. Wertheimer gave them unfamiliar shapes and asked them to find their area. All the shapes could be solved by breaking them down into the basic shapes and solving their area. Another more famous study by Wertheimer is giving students a three-dimensional shape and told them to find the area. Unfortunately most of these students were taught with just formulas and did not fully understand the concept of area because they did not rotate the object. .
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Perceptual principles of Gestalt theory
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
It was interesting at one point but it is hard going through almost any psychology book without seeing the face versus vase pictures. It is just a little old
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
It is interesting seeing the different styles of thought when it came to psychology and how they debate with one another. Here we have Gestalt psychology, we will get behaviorism, and we already had structuralism and functionalism. Learning how these different interpretations of psychology interact, research, and try to establish themselves as the best kind of psychology really just leaves us with a ton of information that we can use to make our own judgments.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
If we look at the British Invasion of music it really came in two waves. Gestalt psychology is like the second wave of German psychology. First we had the Wundt disciples, and he is still relevant in this chapter, but these Gestaltists really became their own style of psychology.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Anything Gestalt psychologists did that did not deal with perception
7b) Why?
I was under the impression before reading this chapter that these guys only studied perception like most people. But learning about how they influenced other areas of psychology , especially Lewin.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Why have I not heard of Lewin before. The strides he made in many areas of psychology like social and developmental should make him a renown hero of psychology. I know he is well revered but he should be in the ranks of Skinner and Freud.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Kohler, Thorndike, Field Theory, Lewin, equilibrium, life space, valence, vector, approach-approach conflict, avoidance-avoidance conflict, approach-avoidance conflict,
1a) What did you find interesting?
Carl Stumpf
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Stumpf was one of the first Gestaltists but what interested me most about him was how skilled of a musician he was. Stumpf was capable of playing six different instruments, I can barely play one so when I read that I immediately had respect for him. He was such a talented musician much of his work had to do with auditory perception of tones. Not only was Stumpf an accomplished psychologist and musician he also became a professor at the university of Berlin and taught many of the original gestaltists.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Wolfgang Kohler
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Kohler interested me because he was one of the main people to bring gestalt psychology to America. Another reason I enjoyed reading about Kohler was because he also stood up to the Nazi regime. During many of his years of work the Nazi regime was interfering in academia, Kohler was one of the few who spoke out against them and one of the last of his colleagues to leave Germany. He eventually refused to sign a declaration of loyalty to Hitler and emigrated to Pennsylvania where he took a job at Swarthmore College.
3a) What did you find interesting?
The Zeigarnik effect
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
When I was first reading about Bluma Zeigarnik and Lewin the thing I found interesting was how the research for this effect came about. Zeigarnik, along with Lewin and other students would meet much like “the experimentalists” we learned about in previous chapters, and talk about research and different ideas. Lewin and Zeigarnik noticed how the waitress could remember their order and bill until after the bill was paid. The two came to realize the enhanced memory was the result of the unrelieved tension of an incomplete task.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Field theory
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I just thought the idea of life space and the whole idea of various ovals and the foreign hull was hard to understand and just did not jump off the page at me.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter will help to understand where Gestalt psychology originated and a different form of psychology besides behaviorism came from.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds on the previous chapters by discussing various and newer forms of psychology like Gestalt psychology which has a different approach than behaviorism.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Stumpf
7b) Why?
From the small section about Carl Stumpf he seemed like an interesting guy and also one of the founders of the Gestalt psychology movement.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
After reading the section about Lewin and his student Bluma Zeigarnik I was surprised to find out how easily people can forget things that just happened to them. It really makes you think about how many things we see on a daily basis that our brain deems as unworthy to store.
9) Terms: Zeigarnik effect, gestalt psychology, Carl Stumpf, field theory, life space, Kurt Lewin
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found many of the topics discussed in chapter 9 very interesting. One of these that I enjoyed reading about was Max Wertheimer. Max Wertheimer was one of the main three psychologists that came up with the idea for Gestalt psychology. I was also interested in some of the ideas that came along with learning about Wertheimer, like apparent motion and the phi phenomenon. Wertheimer did research on apparent motion, and how we see things as moving when really it could just be our minds making that assumption. I think that this topic would be very interesting to study further, like Wertheimer did. Apparent motion has to deal with how people perceive things and I think that it would be interesting to see how these perceptions change depending on the situation or the person. Wertheimer worked with Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka on apparent motion. These three men would soon come together to become the group of founders of Gestalt psychology. I think it is interesting to also see and learn about how people came to know each other, especially in situations like this one. After doing a lot of research on this topic and Wertheimer decided to call this idea the phi phenomenon instead of apparent motion because he felt that apparent motion did not imply that the motion was not really perceived. These ideas brought about the Gestalt psychology which deals a lot with perception. I found a lot of Max Wertheimer’s research and ideas interesting because of the subject he was studying.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The second topic in this chapter that I found interesting was in the close-up. The close-up in this chapter talked about Wolfgang Köhler and his work with apes. The first part of this close-up talked about the hostile nature of the apes and how they were aggressive towards their handler, Manel González y García. This caretaker had wounds from the animals that were caged up. Once he almost even had his finger bitten off. This part of the close-up I found interesting because I think that little random facts like these are interesting. I enjoy hearing stories like these that not many people know, that are different than the basic facts everyone always knows and reads about certain subjects. This part also reminded me of the movie Planet of the Apes because of the apes’ aggressive behaviors in and out of the labs towards humans. It made me wonder if maybe they got the idea for the movie from stories like this one. The rest of the close-up was also interesting because it talked about circumstantial evidence pointing to the fact that Köhler was a German spy. I thought this was interesting as well because it deals with a different side of the story behind Köhler. I feel like there are many conspiracy theories like this one especially relating to famous people. They are interesting to read about, but I know that they are not always the greatest things to believe and I feel that this is the case with Köhler being a spy. The close-up states that there are not many concrete facts supporting this idea, and that people still debate about it, but whether or not it is true still makes it interesting.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The final topic that I found interesting in this chapter was about Kurt Lewin. Kurt Lewin was a supporter of Gestalt psychology and expanded the ideas related with it as well. I also thought it was interesting that Lewin worked in Iowa for nine years, as well as many other places around the world. He contributed numerous amounts of empirical research to the ideas behind the Gestalt psychology. He also came up with the field theory, which I will talk about in the next question. Lewin also did a lot of work in the field of developmental psychology and how children learn differently and the ideas of differentiation and dedifferentiation, which can occur under stress. Lewin also had research in the field of social psychology. This research was related to leadership styles. Just like Max Wertheimer, I found many of Lewin’s research and ideas very interesting to learn about.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The topic I decided to talk about for this question in Kurt Lewin’s field theory. I did not find this idea least interesting but rather the in depth way it is described in the book. I have probably written before that science is not my best subject and for me, a lot of the information that dealt with the field theory is scientifically related, so it was difficult for me to understand. I would most likely have found this subject more interesting if I could fully understand what was written about it and if the section didn’t use as many scientific vocabulary terms as it did. I did find the basis for this topic to be an interesting idea though.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that the most useful information in this chapter important to understanding the history of psychology is the ideas behind the Gestalt psychology. The chapter is mainly based on this topic and I believe that that is rightly so, because it is an important part in the history of psychology. All of the findings by Wertheimer, Köhler, and Koffka definitely left a mark in the history of psychology. Understanding the principals behind Gestalt psychology is an important part of understanding the history of this science in general.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter relates to previous chapters by, again, referring to many psychologists that we have learned about in previous chapters. Many of the people we continue to learn about are connected to previous people and I find that interesting. Many of the ideas of psychologists are passed down from teacher to student or through colleagues and we can see this throughout all of these chapters and previous ones.
Another way that this chapter relates to previous ones is the way animals are used in the field of psychology. In this chapter, we learned about how Köhler used apes in his research. I thought this related to previous chapters because of the amount of research and ideas that have relied on animals and what we learn from them before applying the same ideas to humans.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
One topic that I would be interested in learning more about would be Hedwig von Restorff. One reason for this is because Hedwig is the name of Harry Potter’s owl and I am curious to see if there is any connection there or what the name Hedwig means. Another reason I am interested in this topic is to learn more about the Von Restorff effect and how this further relates to Gestalt psychology and psychology in general.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Some things that I thought about while reading this chapter had to deal with functional fixedness and optical illusions. For functional fixedness, I took this idea and looked at it from a personal standpoint to see if there are any ways that I get stuck when thinking about a certain object or idea. Being an art student, this is one thing that we learn about and how to think outside the box. Being able to be creative is definitely something more people are looking for nowadays, especially in the job search so I think that being able to get past the point of functional fixedness is important for everyone to work on. The second thing I thought about was optical illusions because of the work with reversible figure-ground illustrations. This reminded me of Boring and his Boring figure.
Terms: Max Wertheimer, Gestalt psychology, apparent motion, phi phenomenon, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Lewin, differentiation, dedifferentiation, field theory, functional fixedness, reversible figure-ground illustrations
1. Interesting? Why?
a. Wertheimer on Productive Thinking is something I found interesting.
b. Once again, I have an interest in school affairs. Plus, I 100% agree with what Wertheimer was trying to get across. My own personal story accounts for that agreement. College geometry was the worst. Especially when it came down to understanding 3D figures. I found it very hard to memorize so many formulas for so many different shapes. Until one day I took matters into my own hands and decided to interpret exactly what the formulas where doing. Instead of visualizing equal signs, co-signs, and whatever else have you, I started visualizing shapes and how those shapes where built to create other shapes…like 3D versions of other shapes! Simply by understanding what the formula literally stands for, I found it easier to memorize…and ace my final exam! All it took was “productive thinking!” I even went further and started tutoring other students who were falling behind on this course too. They also found my explanations and translations of the formula a bit easier to remember. When I asked them (based off of my curiosity to human thought processes) why it seemed easier they generally replied with a “I can now formulize it to my own way of thinking.” When they understood the subject as a whole, they could perceive the formulas through an entirely different (and personal) light. This is why this segment caught my interest, because it is so true!!!
2. Interesting? Why?
a. Behavioral Versus Geographical Environments.
b. I found this section interesting because, once again, it is something we can all share stories about. To me, it reminds me of the “light bulb turns on” moment. You know, that moment when REALIZATION strikes you. What you think is real versus what is real caught my eye in this one. Mostly, because it goes back to my Sociology fascination I feel. There is how people perceive themselves and society, and what society and people really are (deep stuff, man). Also, it seems to be a reoccurring sequence of “light bulb” moments in this class! What you perceive of psychology today is changed ever slightly to its reality based off of the “ah ha” you have from learning about the past.
3. Interesting? Why?
a. “A Case Of Espionage?” segment.
b. I enjoyed reading this Close-Up segment because it gave me that same feeling I got when the word got out that Germany found our spies (NSA) looking at their peoples text messages. However, on a more serious note, I enjoyed hearing about his time spent on the islands, especially since his experiments there are still talked about in introductory psychology today. Getting to know how his wife did a lot of the work, and how he did not like being too personal with his fellow primate seemed enjoyable to read about.
4. Nothing to report here.
a. The past two assigned readings I’ve had things to gripe about, but I thoroughly enjoyed all that had been said in this one. I’m a gestalt and cognitive psychology fan, so if there was something I didn’t find interesting…I didn’t realized it yet.
5. I think reading about how most psychology classes only place the gestalt theory in with the perception part was something that will help me understand it more. Hitherto reading this chapter, I had no realization that gestalt theory was more than just perception, and that it truly was the grandfather of cognitive psychology. That should be addressed to future students taking introductory psychology. These people deserve more space in the textbooks!
6. I think this chapter relates to the others because it seems to “flow.” When I say flow, it means I interpret that the other time periods previously discussed in other chapters were the shoulders on which gestalt theory stood on. In the entire infinite and ever expanding universe, all things are connected. And thanks to the domino effect of the past, people’s ideas flourished and helped “berth” this theory into its place.
7. I want to learn more about…?
a. Gestalt’s Theory in everything else other than perception!
b. Seeing this theory in more than perception and pioneer cognitive work has made me interested to see where else this theory has dug its hands into. How much of gestalt was converted into cognitive psychology, and is the gestalt way of thinking used in practical situations like counseling and other “shrink” work.
8. The biggest idea came from my personal recollection mentioned in my first interest. Also, I thought about other areas in my field of study where I might be able to look into things in order to gain a better grip onto what’s going on…. Like my Maps and Maps Interpretation course…yeah…I need a lot of interpretation for that beast!
9. Productive Thinking, Kohler and Tenerife, Gestalt Theory, Behavioral Environments, Geographical Environments, Wertheimer.
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I personally found the principle of perceptual organization to be very interesting. Optical illusions is something that has always blown my mind away because of how iffy they are can be. It’s crazy to think that your brain tricks way of thinking and how everyone thinks in a different manner when it comes to how we see things. Some people may see the animal figure in the clouds and others may just view it as a cloud in the sky. It’s a trickery and psychology has played a huge role in optical illusions because they show how people process imagery and other things in regards to the mind, which is awesome!
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found Wertheimer on productive thinking to be very interesting because it relates to my major as a teacher and children. It was very interesting that Wertheimer thought that children will be more productive if they actually can connect with the concept and if they actually understand the material. This statement holds so true in education because it’s simple, if the child understands the concept then they can move forward in learning a similar concept or a completely different one. As a teacher it is important to know where each student is when it comes to knowing if they know the material or not and if they don’t it is my job to allow them to understand the concept and teach it in a different manner. Instead of trying to challenge your students right away, you should teach what they are going to be challenged on first. Such a great way of thinking.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The different types of techniques seemed to interest me because it interesting to see how different people approach situations in so many different manners. I found it very interesting that avoidance and approach techniques are the main techniques that people use in approaching situations. Most people avoid situations they don’t want to be in, but yet that is a type of approach even if you’re not approaching the situation seems a bit wacky, but interesting. These types of techniques were mentioned in the Field Theory section and I really enjoyed this section it definitely caught my eye.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Although, I think that Kurt Lewin’s research is something that holds interest for me, I think that this section was very dragged out. There was so much things and information about his personal life and background that seemed unneeded. It got to the interesting part once the book actually started talking about his research and theories. But, like I stated before, I think he was a very interesting person but his section was very dull and unneeded at first per say. I didn’t need to know his background to understand who he was. I also wasn’t too fond about the section that talked about Gestalt psychology because there was a lot of information on the studies and some was dull and some was good it just depended. So it was harder to get through.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the development of children and different ways of approaching and thinking are going to be the most important because we will always have those interactions in our world. The different theories and principles that connect with children in general play a huge role in psychology in my personal opinion and I don’t think that will ever change.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I feel like this chapter built on previous chapters by building more on the ideas and aspects of the brain. By talking about optical illusions it is building on the idea of brain function and how the brain actually plays our certain things in different ways for different people. It allows builds on a lot of research that has to do with children, schools, and development more and more as the chapters go. This chapter and the chapters in previous keep expanding on different theories and principles that lead to how psychology became what it is today so this book is definitely doing a good job on building upon important aspects of psychology.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
I personally think learning more about Kurt Lewin would be interesting just because he was in Iowa at one point and knowing what took place while he was here would be pretty cool. He contributed to our state and a huge university which I find to be very interesting. I also would want to know more about his research because it had to do with children and in my major field, children make up all it. It would be interesting to know more about his child development research.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
When reading about the leadership part I personally related because of working with children and different people as a job in a camp setting and I can see the differences that take place in regards to different genders and different outlooks.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Field Theory, Approach Technique, Avoidance Technique, Perceptual Organization Principle, Kurt Lewin, Gestalt psychology, Wertheimer, Productive Thinking, Development.
AS
1a) What did you find interesting?
Gestalt psychology
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Gestalt psychology is a theory of mind and brain. The principle of gestalt psychology is that the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies. The principle maintains that the human eye sees objects in their entirety before perceiving their individual parts, suggesting the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, known as form quality. The whole is anticipated when the parts are not integrated or complete. Gestalt psychology tries to understand the laws of our ability to acquire and maintain stable percepts in a complex, or “noisy” world.
I just liked how everything was broken down and organized. It is a neat way of looking at things, and to think we go through this process without thinking about it or realizing it.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Apparent motion
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Apparent Motion is an optical illusion that makes a still object appear to move. It works by flashing pictures of a still image in different locations so quickly that the image seems to move from one location to the other. If you draw a picture of a stick person throwing a ball, and have consecutive pictures of the ball in different spots along its path until in the last picture it is on the ground, and then flip quickly through the pictures, it would appear the ball was actually thrown.
I liked this because I’m a fan of animated movies. So it was interesting to read Koffkas and Wolfgangs explanation for why motion is perceived and how.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Principles of perceptual organization
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Max Wertheimer noted that rapid sequences of perceptual events, such as rows of flashing lights, create the illusion of motion even when there is none. This is known as the phi phenomenon. Motion pictures are based upon this principle, with a series of still images appearing in rapid succession to form a seamless visual experience. The idea is that stimuli are perceived as organized whole, not as unrelated or separated pieces “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” The Gestalt principles of perceptual organization concern the process whereby people categorize and organize stimulus information into meaningful units to make sense of the stimuli.
This really synced well with my previous interest in apparent motion, and it’s just interesting how people perceive things differently, but can also be influenced to perceive things one way or the other through exposure to related items.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
The Origins and Early development of Gestalt psychology
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
An enormous part of the previous chapter had to do with gestalt psychology.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I found field theory to be pretty interesting. Influenced by Gestalt psychology, Lewin developed a theory that emphasized the importance of individual personalities, interpersonal conflict and situational variables. Lewin's Field Theory proposed that behavior is the result of the individual and the environment. This theory had a major impact on social psychology, supporting the notion that our individual traits and the environment interact to cause behavior. Using this theory we can make conclusions on why people from the past did what they did and why their actions seemed logical to that person in the moment.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This whole chapter was basically built up around Gestalt psychology. It also goes into the different ways it was applied, and what became of those applications, i.e. field theory. The previous chapter introduced use to the theory and its roots.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Field theory
7b) Why?
Seems like a mapping of logical thinking taking place, when one considers all the variables in affect, like physical, and emotional. It was an interesting section and it really made sense to me.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
The chapter is all over the place. It discusses many different theories for various subjects, but it does mention characters from the previous chapter. Most if the information is interesting but I didn’t understand where the chapter was going until I went back to the begging. At that point I understood that the chapter has to do with the effects of Gestalt psychology and its influence.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Form-quality, apparent motion, phi phenomenon, perceptual organization, similarity, field theory, approach-conflict, avoidance-conflict, gestalt theory
1a) What did you find interesting? Origins of Gestalt psychology
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Gestalt psychology is interesting to me because of its background and development. Immanuel Kant, who was born in 1724, was where Gestalt branched off of. Gestalt psychology definition is the whole is different from the sum of its parts. Immanuel Kant was interesting because he thought that consciousness experience differs from sensory experience. So the reason that people look at things and try to find faces, is because that is what our brain is telling our eyes, we are trained to find faces. Gestalt didn't end up being founded until 1910 to 1912 and that was when Max Wertheimer completed research on apparent motion, which is also known as the phi phenomenon. Phi phenomenon was the illusion that two stationary flashing lights are moving from one place to another. These theories of perception within Gestalt psychology were very important because with the conclusion that humans only focus on part of things, not the whole of things.
2a) What did you find interesting? Gestalt principles
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
For Gestalt to be "Gestalt" certain things had to meet a set of laws or principles. There are 5 different Gestalt principles and they are: proximity, continuity, similarity, closure, and simplicity. The law of proximity states that objects near each other tend to be grouped together. The law of continuity states that lines are seen as following the smoothest path. The law of similarity states that items that are similar tend to be grouped together. The laws of closure states that objects grouped together are seen as a whole. And the law of Pragnaz states that reality is organized or reduced to the simplest form possible. The principles interest me because it made me think about how I think when I see things close to each other, I would think they were grouped as well. Most of the laws are similar and seem repeated.
3a) What did you find interesting? Kohler's Mentality of Apes
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Kohler had a very interesting study. He believed that instinct is a dynamic pattern. Whenever psychologists use animals in studies to find their problem solving skills, it really makes me think about how smart animals can be, or its just Darwinism’s theory. If a chimp tries to solve a problem using trials and errors, but fails, it pauses and considers the problem taking into account everything around it. It then applies this solution to similar problems in the future, but then it reaches and insight that leads to a solution. Kohler found that this pattern of insight learning is active, not passive. Therefore instinct is a dynamic pattern. This is contrary to behaviorism where is would believe that the chimpanzees learning was conditioned by response to a stimulus and reinforced by a reward. But in Kohler's experiment, the chimps actually learned by perceiving the problems and not by receiving a reward.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? This was a very interesting chapter and I actually enjoyed learning about Gestalt.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Gestalt is a type of psychology that took as its starting point the idea that concepts such as perception, learning, and cognition should be considered as wholes and not studied by investigating their various parts. Gestalt was innovative for the time because behaviorism was countering the psychologists who believe beings adapt to stimulus by perceiving problems. Knowing about Gestalt will be very necessary.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter goes into a different type of psychology for the time and is playing off the last chapter because it was another new type of psychology and applying it to the world.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? Isomorphism
7b) Why?
I was not sure if this just meant the same thing as Gestalt or if it was different in its own way so I would have liked to know a little more about that.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about the apes that Kohler was experimenting and what was going through Kohler's mind when he saw that they were problem-solving. Especially since there were many people who believed that behaviorism was more prevalent than problem-solving with animals.
Terms: Gestalt psychology, perception, phi phenomenon, similarity, gestalt principles, Mentality of Apes, isomorphism
1a) Gestalt Psychology and Perception
1b) The section Principles of Perceptual Organization really caught my interest while reading along in chapter nine. The whole idea of separating whole pictures from their backgrounds is something I’ve always found fascinating. I read that Edgar Rubin came up with figure-ground and was significant for gestalt psychologists. It amazes me when looking at the images in the book how the figures can have such distinct features that allow them to be isolated from the backgrounds. Proximity, similarity, good continuation, pragnanz, and closure are other organizing principles that I also enjoyed reading about.
2a) The Gestalt Approach to Cognition and Learning
2b) This section of the chapter was interesting because the Gestalt psychology mentioned how it wasn’t just only concerned with perception but also cognition. Kohlers insight in Apes was fascinating to read about. Kohler disagreed with Thorndikes trial and error process and came up with the process he called insight. How he did his research in not trying to create the same mistake as Thorndikes research is cool to see because it shows that everyone keeps learning from mistakes. Not only just the way he problem solved and did his research on Apes was interesting but also Werthimer research on productive thinking. His approach with teaching mathematics and figures with geometry with the students was exciting because he thought they would be more productive thinkers if they truly understood the concept of area.
3a) Kurt Lewin: Expanding The Gestalt Vision
3b) Kurt Lewin did not consider himself a gestalt psychologist, he was more interested in motivation, emotion, personality and its development rather than what the gestalts focused on such as perception, learning, and cognition. His field theory and the Zeigarnik effect were both interesting areas to read. Understanding a person’s behavior requires knowing about all the forces acting on a person at a given moment is his field theory. This whole concept was mind-blowing and pretty confusing to read how the theory took place. It’s interesting that his phenomenon that memory is better for incomplete rather than complete tasks is known as Zeigarnik effect today because we don’t necessarily think of that effect.
4a) Lewin as Developmental and Social Psychologists
4b) Each of these sections, Lewin as Developmental Psychologist and Lewin as Social Psychologists both seemed to drag on and were pretty lengthy. Not a whole lot of interesting topics and I feel as though they could’ve narrowed this area of discussion down. These didn’t speak out to me as much as the other topics.
5) I feel as though each topic that I found interesting all help me understand the history of psychology very well. While reading this chapter the thing I find most useful to help my understanding would probably be the gestalt approach to cognition and learning. This shows that you can learn from past mistakes such that Kohler did with Thorndikes research. It helps me understand how psychologists keep influencing others. It also shows me how their approach with cognition proved others assumptions wrong because they thought it only concerned perception.
6) This chapter builds on from previous chapters with the gestalt approach to cognition and learning. In this section Kohler brings Throndikes research back from chapter 7. I enjoy reading about how psychologists build off of one another.
7a) Gestalt Psychology and Perception
7b) I would like to learn more about gestalt psychology and perception because I have always found the figure-ground illustrations fascinating. I think it would be interesting to read more about gestalts past and how it came to be along with learning more about the principles of perceptual organization.
8) While reading chapter nine I remembered reading a lot about these topics mentioned in previous classes. I thought about how it is so interesting to see psychologists build off one another’s findings and research, this came to mind while reading about Kohler and Thorndike with gestalt approach on cognition and learning. Reading about Kurt Lewin had me thinking about how we need people like him that see things in a different perspective and want to broaden and expand ideas.
9) Gestalt psychology and perception. Edgar Rubin. Principles of perceptual organization. Wertheimer. Proximity. Similarity. Good continuation. Pragnanz. Closure. Gestalt approach to cognition and learning. Kohler on insight in apes. Thorndike. Productive thinking. Kurt Lewin. Field theory. Zeigarnik effect.
1a) & 1b)
In 1910 apparent motion was getting its start and was the basis for the newly created motion picture industry. I always find it cool how psychology can be applied to so many different areas of life. I also find the influencing factors behind psychology interesting. Brentano’s system of act psychology influenced Von Ehrenfels who in turn influenced Gestalt psychology. Everything seems so interconnected and plays off of each other. Figure-ground segregation is interesting and fun. It reminded me of when they used to be on the back of cereal boxes I would look at as a kid. It is cool to figure out how all of it began. We have all seen the two faces and vase image many times so gaining insight into who created it and the story behind it is neat. It was also cool to learn about the principles within this concept such as proximity, similarity and good continuation and how they are applied.
2a) & 2b)
It is always interesting to see how history affected the psychology of the time. During the rise and Nazi Germany, after Hitler came to power, academic freedom in German Universities was disappearing. Several Jewish Professors such as Albert Einstein were dismissed from their positions. Einstein is such a prominent figure today so I found this extremely interesting. I was also surprised by Hitler’s statement, “If the dismissal of Jewish scientists means the annihilation of contemporary German science, then we shall do without science for a few years!” Psychology was in fact affected by this, being crippled for many years following. World War I had an impact as well with people such as Koffka starting to take a look at cognitive consequences of severe brain injury in soldiers. Another way history affected psychology during this time was how Lewin’s leadership research great our of his reflection on the state of the world during the mid 1930’s.
3a) & 3b)
In the past few chapters we have learned about the difficulties women in the field faced so it was interesting and nice to see Koffka taking a position at a private liberal arts college for women and influencing the careers of several talented women psychologists such as Eleanor Gibson who later went on to invest the visual cliff as a means of studying the developmental depth perception in infants. Koffka also welcome women into the meetings of the topology group. We saw in a previous chapter how Tichener kept them out of his group. I found it interesting also how an individual we read about in the last chapter was accused of being a spy and now Kohler was being accused of the same thing. I thought it was cool though how he spoke out about Nazi inference in academia, saying that, “only the quality of a human being should determine his worth, that intellectual achievement, character and obvious contributions to German culture retain their significance whether a person is Jewish or not,” even though his situation at the institute deteriorated because of it.
4a) & 4b)
It became uninteresting when it started talking about things like magnetic fields and physics. I loose interest when it becomes too far into science. It discussed things like fields of force and space-forms. A lot of this was over my head. Once again when it was discussing auditory phenomenon and combining tones it was all very confusing. The explanation of apparent motion was difficult to understand as well. Also the section on field theory which discussed equilibrium, valance and vector was uninteresting and I did not follow it very well either.
5)
This chapter had a lot of useful information, especially regarding gestalt psychology and how it got its start. It discussed it starting sometime during 1910-1912 when Max Wertheimer was looking at a common perceptual phenomenon from a different perspective. Gestaltists had been influenced by the German philosophical tradition of Kant. It also mentioned four direct influenced on the creation of this psychology such as Ernst Mach, Christian Von Ehrenfels, Franz Brentanto and Carl Stumpf. The chapter discussed how the experimental studies on the perception of movement paper is often considered the founding event of Gestalt psychology. Its good knowing about Gestalt psychology and how it began as so called Gestalt organizing principles first articulated by Wetheimer are now familiar fixtures within perception chapters in many general psychology books. Kohler’s research introduced a new way of thinking into the debate about learning and problem solving. It also extended animal methodology. Also the Barker, Dembo and Lewin study became a classic within developmental psychology literature and even still appears in modern developmental psychology textbooks today. Lewin had influence on organizational psychology as well, showing that letting workers set production goals after meeting in group had the twofold effect of improving moral as well as increasing worker output and group processes could be used effectively to train managers to overcome male prejudice against women workers.
6)
It related to chapter two when talking about Kant, with its emphasis on how a prior perceptual and cognitive categories shape our experiences. It mentioned Wundt who we have been multiple times through previous chapter. It also mentioned Tichener and his lab which we read about in chapter seven. Other individuals we have seen in past chapters which this one talked about were Oswald Kulpe and Thorndike.
7a) & 7b)
I think it would be interesting to do even more research on Koffka and his life. Through this chapter you could see so many contributions he made to the field, influencing gestalt psychology and looking into so many different areas such as brain injury in soldiers. I also really liked all that he did with taking a stand for women in the field. Koffka was also the one who made distinctions between the world as it really is in reality which he called the geographical environment and the world as we perceive it which he called the behavioral environment. It was an interesting concept but a bit confusing so it might be nice to look more into that as well and learn a bit about it.
8)
I liked the way the chapter described form-quality with the example of the musician playing a melody in a different key. It was all really confusing to me at first but examples such as this made it easier to understand. Many of the individuals we read about seem to have first studied either medicine or law before getting into the field of psychology. I enjoyed reading about Kohler and the apes. We share so many similarities and I have always loved and been interested in monkeys so it was cool to read about the experiments such as the one with Sultan using the bamboo to get the banana. It was also cool how Iowa got a shout out. Lewin moved from New York to Iowa where he joined the Child Welfare Research Station connected with the University of Iowa. This chapter had a ton of photos and figures which is always nice. It showed people like Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler. It is nice to be able to put faces to the individuals we are reading about. The text gave the example of a waiter remembering what everyone had ordered while the bill was unpaid and that his life space had a tension to it and needed to keep it in memory. Once the bill was paid however the tension resolved and closure had been achieved. It is like this with tests most times. We remember all the information and it leaves us as soon as we finish the test. That is why things should be about more than just memorization like Wetheimer was trying to do. This goes to show how memory is better for incomplete rather than complete tasks which is called Zeigarnik effect.
9) Terminology: Form-quality, act psychology, apparent motion, gestalt organizing principles, proximity, similarity, good continuation, geographical environment, behavioral environment, field theory, life space, equilibrium, valence, vector, Zeigarnik effect
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Zeigarnik effect: The Zeigarnik effect is the effect when memory is better when a task is incomplete rather than a complete task. This in a sense makes sense because our memory works best when you start working on something and when you finish working on a task. So if you do not finish a task you naturally would try to remember it so you can come back and finish the task. In a sense it would remain in your mind consciously or unconsciously because you didn’t finish the task. If you take breaks from working on a task it would be like remembering starting the task then ending the current process you are in before you break and then start up again and then finish, your memory would be best when you started first and right before your break and then when you started again and then finally finished.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Field Theory: The field theory consists of the environment, but not the physical environment, the environment that is perceived by the individual that influences behavior. In a sense our emotions or our behavior or other people’s behaviors influence us to change the perception we have on the environment. Lewin went further into detail and said that one needs to require knowing about all the forces acting on a person at the given point of time. This is called life space. Essentially it is being aware of all the factors that could influence you into having a particular perception within the environment.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Apparent Motion: I found this interesting because it shows that when there are two sensory events that occur we perceive it as a single continuous event. There is a perception of a single light that moves from side to side, instead of two flashing lights. With this discover it influenced the motion picture industry. So without this discovery we might not have movies.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I didn’t really find Act Psychology that interesting. Psychology in general is active, you cannot have an idea or thought without an active action. The physiology in your brain lets you have the capability to retain the thought you had which is active or vice versa the thought influenced the physiology of your brain. When you perceive anything you are acting, the only thing I can think of that is close to non-active psychology is the absence of thinking which in cases of psychology we relate the closest to apathy.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
It think one of the most useful think to understand the history of psychology is when Gestalt Psychology in Germany didn’t really believe in developmental psychology as having a major impact. After a few psychologist in Germany moved to America because of Hitler’s hate of Jews, the psychologist started to realize that there can be some aspects of development psychology in Gestalt psychology. So in a sense it seems like if Hitler didn’t put the blame on the Jews Gestalt Psychology would be different, and some famous psychologist would never have gone to the United States. Even psychology in the United States might be different otherwise.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
When Kohler was testing with apes, one of them named Sultan had to combine some sticks in order to reach a banana. Sultan tried other strategies that failed beforehand. He tried dragging a box to the side of the cage, drop one stick outside the cage. In a way Sultan was using Thorndike’s trial and error to gain the banana. Kohler’s believed it was his insight explanation, where one perceives the elements of the problem in a new configuration.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
Geographical Environment and Behavioral Environment: Koffka made the distinction between the world as reality which he called Geographical environment and the world as we perceive it which is Behavioral environment. I would like to learn more about how our behaviors which in turn affect our emotions and the emotions of others around us can influence our perception within the environment around us. I think with interactions with others in an environment emotions and behaviors go hand and hand my emotions can influence my behavior towards another person and vice versa.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
Some Ideas I had was how does memory and perception tie together? If you have an initial perception of an environment like your house you use to grow up in, would you perception tend to keep the same of the perception of the environment of your old house? Even if your family has changed grown older and tend to act and behave differently, would you perception of your family after a couple years remain somewhat the same? Would you tend to perceive your mom and dad as they were when they raised you as a child? Or would you start to have new perceptions after a given amount of time?
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Zeigarnik effect
Field Theory
Act psychology
Geographical environment
Behavioral Environment
Life Space
Apparent Motion
1a) Principles of Perceptual Organization
1b) I found this very interesting because I have always been interested in optical illusions. I thought what Gestalt did in psychology that caused many to follow in his thinking and research this topic. I liked the figure-ground segregation, I know that it wasn’t a Gestalt psychologist that found out the theory, but they did use it to support their thinking. The figure-ground theory is that our basic perceptual tendencies bring objects to the foreground and away from the background. The gestaltists used this to help describe about how objects have distinct features that make them come away from their background. One of my favorite parts about this section was when they talked about the optical illusions, how sometimes when we look at objects their proximity changes how something will look, but if proximity is the same all around, then the similarity of the objects is what changes what we see. The eyes are one of the most interesting thing in our world and our bodies, how they perceive objects is really crazy and interesting to me, just how a physical object can deceive something so complex.
2a) Zeigarnik effect
2b) I found this very interesting because I like to think I have a pretty good memory when it comes to school work as well as when I am at my job. Some people have a lot better memories than I do and some have worse ones, it is interesting how some people have better memories than others as a whole. What I never thought of was if people have better memories in certain situations compared to others. In my life I know that I can’t always remember what my mom tells me what I have to do, or any situation like that. So after I started reading this section I had memories about what problems I have had remembering things in everyday life but I can remember for all of my classes test dates, homework that is due, and what I need to bring to each class without writing it down. Then when I got to the application of the Zeigarnik effect it did make perfect sense. How when there is tension in your life about incomplete tasks you will remember it better than the ones that don’t bring that tension to your life. It really is such a crazy effect, but it couldn’t be truer, another thing I would think that you could go off of this is if there are certain jobs that cause your memory to be better or worse. It is kind of a broad research question, but I’m sure there is a job that will enhance your memory more than others.
3a) Action Research
3b) I found this interesting because it went into the work place, which is building off of what Hugo Munsterberg did with psychology. Action research was all about how to improve efficiency in the workplace, he came up with the goal setting theory, which means that the employee makes their own goals, which in turn will help boost morale and efficiency at the same time. This was a great movement in the I/O field, this showed a great way for managers to effectively motivate and manage employees. This is important to me because I want to be in management some day and this is a ground breaking finding.
4a) Evaluating Lewin
4b) I really enjoyed learning about Lewin, but I think at the end of the chapter they really just said everything again. I think it is good to look back at what everyone did, but I think rereading it all kind of dragged on.
5) I thought the thing that will help the most about understanding the history is Lewin, he made so many ground breaking findings, that I think if you wrote a book about psychology, and you left him out I think there would be a huge chunk missing.
6) This chapter extends on what Munsterberg did in the work place, and how to improve the work employees do.
7a) Gestalt
7b) I would like to learn more about his way of thinking and what he did.
8) How could you extend the research some of the people did, like the optical illusion or the Zeigarnik effect.
9) Zeigarnik effect, Gestalt, Lewin, Similarity, Perceptual organization, proximity, Action research
I made a mistake on the perception principles, I kept writing "him" when describing Gestalt psychology and I realized I didnt specify who "Him" was. Max Wertheimer.
1a) What did you find interesting?
Max Wertheimer
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this to be interesting because he was seen as the founder of Gestalt psychology. And I also found it interesting how he started studying law and then his interests changed to psychology. I think that this is very relatable. We all don’t always know what we want to do, so we usually change, and I think Wertheimer is relatable in that aspect. From Wertheimer, and his experiments it was explained that eyes cannot move in two directions at the same time. He argued that phenomenon must stand by its self without analysis on the experience. From this research and statement he came up with phi phenomenon. He came to the conclusion that we perceive not whole events not components.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Kohler- learning and problem solving
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this to interesting because it related to chapter 7. Kohler disagreed with Thorndike. Thorndike believed that problem solving was a multi-step process. The process was about trial and “accidental success”, and the things that don’t work are eliminated. Kohler argued that this wasn’t true and said that you can view the entire thing and then reorganize the elements into a new formation. He believed that solutions happen quickly once we reorganize the information. This labeled this process insight.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Productive Thinking
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was a book created by Wertheimer on his interest in thinking and problem solving. One of the topics in his book that related to gestalt principles was how to teach children geometry. Wertheimer believed that children could become more productive learners if they truly understood the concepts being taught, like ‘area of a shape’. He believed that teachers should start with simple concrete examples, and build from there. Once children have a full understanding they can then apply it and successfully do the task.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Origins and Early Development of Gestalt Psychology
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I find this information to be more boring because I think that it is way more interesting to learn what Gestalt psychology is. It’s more interesting learning about the discoveries and theories found in Gestalt psychology then how it actually began. I would rather learn how Gestalt psychology has been applied.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Before reading this chapter I had no clue what Gestalt psychology even was, I had never heard about it before. So I think that this chapter was useful in helping me learn about an area I had no information on. Also I think it was good to learn the impact this had on psychology, and how it expanded psychology.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds on other theories talked about in previous chapters. I found it interesting how Kohler went against Thorndike’s theory about problem solving. Kohler had a completely different theory than Thorndike and I think that it is interesting to compare these things. Ideas and theories are always changing it seems and not one is always true and you can see this through the chapters.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Wertheimer
7b) Why?
I think that it would be interesting to research and find out what made him switch from law to psychology. What was his thought process and what drove him to do this?
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought a lot about education and teaching in schools. Wertheimer had a good point that we don’t fully explain concepts. I think that this does need to be done. I think we just throughout a concept and expect students to just learn it and not fully understand what the concept is and the background on why this concept is important. I think there are always a lot of unknown questions students have in education because educators don’t full explain why.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Max Wertheimer, phi phenomenon, Kohler, Thorndike, insight, productive thinking,
1a) What did you find interesting?
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I liked reading about the origins and early development of Gestalt psychology because it is always interesting to learn about where something came from. I liked how they talked about form-quality and used the example of playing a melody in a different key or with a different instrument and how it how it still has the same melody, just sounds a little different.
2a) What did you find interesting?
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I was also interested in act psychology, where the focus is the act of perceiving. I found it interesting because you can have an experiment telling you to do one thing and there can be so many different ways to study it and I like that they took this route to study. When studying perception the important thing is how the individual perceives the event and what the event means to the individual. I also like this experiment because the individual cant really guess what the researcher is looking for so it doesn’t make their answers biased.
3a) What did you find interesting?
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I also liked reading about apparent motion because it is weird to think about how many times a day something like that would happen that we don’t even realize. There could be so many possible explanations as to why one thing happens but we perceive it as something else. It is just something cool to think about, I cant really explain why I like the idea of it, I just do.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
All this information is interesting because its new but stuff towards the end of the chapter starts to get the least interesting mainly because I get tired of reading by the time I get to the end and Im close to being done so It is harder to focus. If I had to pick something though I would just say was reading about evaluating Lewin. It just didn’t catch my attention, and that may have been just because it was towards the end.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
It is hard to pick one things because everything in the chapter contributes to the history of psychology. But maybe the studies of perception help understand psychology because in order to study other things you have to know why people perceive some things they way they do in order for your research to make more sense to you.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter relates to other chapters because it is basically an approach to psychology that objects the strategy of the previous ones we have learned about such as Titchenerian structuralism, and American behaviorism. Gestaltists argued that understanding mind and behavior is emphasized on phenomenologically whole experiences.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
7b) Why?
Maybe just the mentality of apes because I like to learn about animals because it is different than our own mentality. Even if there are similarities it is still different.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I started to think about how many different perceptions there are to things and how we could perceive a lot of things different if we just had a different experience with them. Also about how our perceptions change about things form new experience. For example I could perceive a class to be hard because on the first day I didn’t know what the teacher was talking about, but maybe my perception would change if the next class period I knew what was going on.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Form-quality, act psychology, apparent motion, gestaltists
1a) Max Wertheimer and Productive Thinking
1b) At first Wertheimer was interested in studying law, but that soon changed to philosophy after attending college. It was no surprise Wertheimer’s dissertation was about criminal law, but it associated this with thinking. Later in life he studied apparent motion, which is known as when a stimuli, not moving, appears to be moving under different circumstances. Some explanations were described about just how this could occur. One idea talked about the objects being flashed at different times, but so close together that it appeared to be simultaneous, and we ‘fused’ the two objects together. Another idea was based on the inference that the individual believed it was there, because it can be in one place it can be in another. At the University of Frankfurt, Wertheimer was able to further study his interest in this apparent motion topic and come to some reasonable conclusions. It was because of this lab that the paper, “Experimental Studies on the Perception of Movement” was written by Wertheimer. This paper is said to be the basis for Gestalt Psychology. Wertheimer was able to decipher which idea had facts to back it up. The experiment eliminated both explanations. Wertheimer decided to rename the idea as the phi phenomenon because apparent made it sound like it didn’t actually happen. This started the thinking of elementism. Wertheimer’s research continued, but with some conflict throughout. It was around the time Hitler was taking over, and because Wertheimer was Jewish, he had to move on. He moved to the United States where he was able to study at the New School For Social Research, and it was here he published “Productive Thinking.” The main topic where Wertheimer talks about Gestalt psychology is when he speaks about how children are able to learn geometry.
2a) Kohler and Apes
2b) Kohler studied apes and the way they are able to problem solve. He published “The Mentality of Apes” where he spoke about Thorndike and his discovery of the puzzle box. Kohler didn’t believe the way to problem solving was just a step by step process, instead, based on Gestalt psychology, Kohler determined it can be looked at a whole where different pieces can be put together to come to a solution. Kohler used ‘insight’ as a way to describe the process he believed was how people problem solve. Kohler made sure to not make the mistakes Thorndike was said to make. Instead of having the animals he was using see only the parts apparatus, he let them see the entire apparatus where they were able to problem solve at a whole instead of one step at a time. Kohler’s research was obviously questioned by the American psychologists at the time. Even though it was questioned, Kohler’s research raised further questions to be studied about the problem solving process and learning.
3a) Kurt Lewin
3b) Lewin studied biology and medicine at first, but at the time was unsure of what he wanted to pursue. After being taught by professors for a few years, he decided it was something he was interested in and decided to become a professor. Because he lived in the years during the World War I, he was enlisted and fought for years. During this time he deciphered a difference between the geographical and behavioral environments. After the war, he went on to Berlin’s Psychological Institute where he pursued his goals of becoming a professor. He soon moved to the United States, and was able to work Stanford also working at Cornell as a guest professor. He is known to contribute more to research world more than any of the other Gestalt researchers combined.
4a) Zeigarnik effect
4b) Zeigarnik was one of Lewin’s students. The research was based on the memory of individuals, especially those working in settings where memory is very necessary. The idea stemmed from a waiter at the local café the students continued to go to and host meetings. All in all, with memory is said to be better in incomplete task when tension is unrelieved.
5) These three men talked about how problem solving and learning was essential. All through the chapter we read about talked about Gestalt psychology and how it was brought to the United States from these German men. It is important to learn how these things were thought of outside the United States, but we were able to adopt these research topics and ideas because of the terrible situations in the world, which forced people to immigrate.
6) Discussing problem solving and learning based on memory has continued to be a topic of research even in today’s world. The chapters up to this one have spoke about how to properly problem solve and how learning can range from one way to another. All different people learn differently and even at different rates.
7a) I would like to learn more about Kohler and his research on Apes.
7b) Discovering how someone elaborated on Thorndike’s research would be beneficial in learning more deeply about memory and how animals problem solve. Even though it is about animals, we are able to relate it back to humans.
8) I have learned quite a bit about illusions and how our brain makes us think one thing, but it might not be true. Our eyes deceive us at times. It is interesting, because in biopsychology we learned all about the process of perception and how we see, but with illusions it is as if that whole process is thrown out the window.
Apparent motion, phi phenomenon, productive thinking, insight, Gestalt psychology, zeigarnik effect
1a) What did you find interesting?
Phenomenological differences
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
When Kurt Lewin was at war and he describes a narrow pathway that can be seen as joy in a peaceful summer, but now as a place to hide the enemy in it. This perception of the same place, but having two very different outcomes is fascinating. It shows that even if one picture is assumed to have just one meaning, there can always be another perception of it, and it almost seems to bring out a yin and yang thing. The yin and yang meaning for every positive, there can be a negative and vice versa. This idea seems highly relevant as someone who has worked with people with mental disorders.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Law of simplicity
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The law of simplicity states that we will take the simplest approach to solving a problem, one that seems the most likely. Because of this, it can be assumed in my mind, that this is where functional fixedness gets its roots. Without challenging a thought process and accepting A + B = C rather than A + B – D = C etc or some other function leads to simple thinking instead of critical thinking. The law seems to want complacency in thinking, because simplest can be assumed to be right most of the time. Regardless, this law and the function fixedness that’s talked about below both go hand in hand and interest me.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Functional Fixedness
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was an idea that people were unable to think past the norms that have been established for them. It seems this idea could be applied to about any job, task, or study done currently barring a few. As a philosophy major it has caused me to critically think about obscure ideas that nothing can ever prove or disprove, and because of this the idea of being stuck in one mindset is interesting because I know it happens all the time. This is why it interested me, because this idea seems to be relevant to this date, even if it isn’t necessarily taught.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Life Space and the diagram
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
Although the theory and idea is still being used to this day, seeing a little egg shaped symbol with + and – symbols over something a person wants doesn’t necessarily interest me. The idea is sound, however the method to present it just is off putting for me. It’s difficult to describe, but reading the section on Life Space was not for me.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Gestalt and the movements in studying perception I think will be most useful to understanding the progression of psychology. The theories may not have been the most popular, but they tackled an old study with an outside the box type mentality which allowed for a progression of other theories as well. These new ideas led to a more critical and unique thinking across psychology which only allows for better theories to emerge in the future.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Again, the idea of German schools being top notch and doctoral students coming to America was a theme in the chapter. However this chapter focuses less on the schools and more of the reason why the people left, WW2 and Hitler exiling/exterminating Jews. Also this chapter adds another field of “new” study to psychology in America which is now becoming quite diverse.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Wertheimer
7b) Why?
Wertheimer had a dislike for basic teaching and just going through the motions, he felt that students would learn better if they fully understood what they were learning. I agree with his mindset of getting the base knowledge instead of working through the motions and his theory of productive thinking is something that interests me.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
In the beginning of the chapter it mentions philosopher Kant (Immanuel) who was of heavy influence, and I know in Ethics I will eventually read his ethical works. Also one thing that stood out was that Kurt Lewin landed a job in Iowa, it was the first time the Midwest seemed to have any relevance in psychology. Lastly that this whole chapter dealt with perception which is fascinating and something that may truly never be known how it works.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Phenomenological differences, Kurt Lewin, Law of simplicity, Functional Fixedness, Life Space, Gestalt, Wertheimer, Kant.
1a) What did you find interesting? 1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The first thing I thought was interesting was the close-up session regarding Wolfgang Kohler’s research on Tenerife Island during World War I. A psychologist named Ronald Ley attempted to locate Kohler’s research by visiting the island in 1975. While on Tenerife, Ley met the animal handler and caretaker, Manuel Gonzalez y Garcia. He helped Kohler with the animals on the island. Despite his age of 87, Gonzalez y Garcia shared personal and interesting facts about Kohler’s research. He mentioned that Sultan, Kohler’s most notorious ape, nearly bit off Manuel’s finger. He should Ley the scars from the apes on his body. Another interesting fact about Kohler was that he enjoyed spending time with the animals, but never went into the rooms alone with the apes. He spent most of his studies observing the animals from the outside. I thought it was interesting because Manuel’s experiences provided us with behind-the-scenes information regarding the type of person Kohler was, and experiences only the researcher and his close friends would know.
2a) What did you find interesting? 2b) Why was it interesting to you?
The next thing I found interesting was Gestalt psychology in regards to perception. The rules that determine how things are organized to a whole is gestalt organizing principles. These tendencies we perceive on a daily basis interested me because it changed up my thought process. For example, figure-ground segregation was the first principle described. This principle illustrates that when you look at a picture of a person or object, that object is more memorable than the ground. The other principle that interested me was proximity. This principle states that the distance two objects are from each other can be perceived that the objects belong together. These interest me because it allows me to think about things differently. When I perceive things, I do not question my judgment. It is fascinating to see things in a new light.
3a) What did you find interesting? 3b) Why was it interesting to you?
The next thing I found interesting was Kurt Lewin. Lewin studied medicine and biology, but did not know where he wanted to go from there. At one point in his life, he wanted to emulate his professors. Lewin’s mentor was Carl Stumpf. He thought very highly of him as shown in the obituary he wrote for Stumpf. Lewin finished his dissertation during the outbreak of World War I. He enlisted in the army and spent several years fighting for his country. Lewin came out of the war as an officer, and earned German’s Iron Cross after he was wounded during battle. Lewin returned to Berlin and became a professor in 1921. One thing that interested me the most about Lewin’s research was his concept of field theory. He believe that to understand human behavior, it is required to know about the forces acting on the person at a given moment. The space that the person operates in is called life space. He used a form of geometry, topology, to calculate life space. Everything outside the space was what Lewin called foreign hull.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? 4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The part that I found least interesting in this chapter was the section regarding Gestalt research on cognition. This was the least interesting because it was the hardest part to read. The studies that were illustrated in the section did not spark my interest. They were dull, and I found it hard to grasp the concepts the book was trying to showcase.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
The thing that I think will be the most useful in understanding the history of psychology was Kurt Lewin. He came up with multiple principles in gestalt psychology, and was a vital figure to learn about in the chapter. He uncovered multiple theories—e.g. field theory, the zeigarnik effect, etc. He made the biggest impact in gestalt psychology, and I imagine that the other chapters will build off of his accomplishments.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter builds on the previous chapter because there was a section about Kohler that regarded comparative psychology. He worked with apes to study their mental capacities. Like Thorndike, Kohler enjoyed studying animals. This chapter goes more into depth in thought processes of not only animals, but also humans.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 7b) Why?
I would like to learn more about how we perceive optical illusions, and our thought processes. It is interesting to think about how we associate objects based on their proximity and similarity. I want to know more about optical illusions and how they are drawn, because to me it seems near impossible.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
While I was reading the chapter, I thinking about how hard it would be to make an optical illusion. The one with the two faces that make the goblet is a simple illusion, but it would be difficult to instruct. I can barely draw a glass; a glass composed of two faces seems near impossible.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Kohler, Gestalt psychology, Gestalt organizing principles, figure-ground, proximity, Lewin, field theory, life space, topology, foreign hull, similarity
1a) Hedwig von Restorff and the Von Restorff Effect
1b) Von Restorff discovered that if people learned a series of codes with a three-digit number inside the code surrounded by random symbols, the individuals were more likely to remember the three digit number rather than the symbols surrounding it. Currently, her findings are called the Von Restorff Effect. This happens when a stimulus stands out among other information, and that stimulus is more likely to be recalled than the rest of the information (Goodwin 2012). I found this interesting because that is exactly what happens when I am reading for a class. The only things that I recall (at the very least in more detail) are the things that stood out to me while I read.
2a) Kurt Lewin and Approach/Avoidance Conflict
2b) Lewin describes three scenarios in which conflict between needs occur. According to Lewin, conflict occurs when two or more needs apply force from different directions. The first scenario is called approach-approach conflict. This is when both of the options are desirable. Approach-avoidance conflict is when one option is better than the other. The final option is avoidance-avoidance conflict. This occurs when both options are not desirable (Goodwin 2012). This was intriguing to me because I have always enjoyed the topic of motivation. I feel like that area of psychology is very applicable and, at least some of the time, fairly easy to comprehend. While reading this section, I noticed that I had stopped to come up with at least one or two examples of both in my own life.
3a) Kurt Lewin and Social Psychology
3b) As the book pointed out, most of Lewin’s colleagues would classify him as a developmental psychologist, but he felt that his research was much broader than that. He studied many topics in the social realm such as prejudice, group influence, and leadership (Goodwin 2012). The study that he completed with Lippitt and White over leadership environments was the most interesting part to me. The researchers studied groups of five boys while they made crafts and gave them each a different leadership environment. The three types of leadership were authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire. The groups that had the authoritarian environment were submissive, somewhat unproductive, and really didn’t show much interest in the activity. The groups with the laissez-faire environment spent most of their time trying to decide what to do. Because there was no teacher and the group had a lack of structure, this lead to frustration, hostility, and confusion. There was nothing accomplished in these groups. In the democratic groups, however, the boys worked together and were motivated (Goodwin 2012). This was interesting to me because of the way that the boys acted in different situations. The author goes on to talk about the findings from this study. When the boys would switch from a democratic group to an authoritarian group, they easily fell into the same situation as the other groups had (Goodwin 2012). It’s a thought-provoking topic.
4a) Max Wertheimer and Apparent Motion/ Phi Phenomenon
4b) As Interesting as I thought the Von Restorff effect was, I really couldn’t get into this topic. Apparent motion is the idea that the flashing of two lights at just the right time can create the perception that it is not two lights flashing, but one. Wertheimer called this the Phi Phenomenon instead because the word apparent makes the impression that the motion was not really perceived (Goodwin 2012).
5) The topic that I think will be the most helpful in my studies of psychology would be the topic of Approach/Avoidance Conflict. I think this will be helpful because I am interested in I/O Psychology. Motivation is key to understanding how to better help people in the work place. If you know what they are more likely to choose in a situation of conflict, you can better place them in the job they would be best at.
6) This chapter definitely built off of chapter eight. That chapter talked about the education system, and how it could be improved. This chapter built on that idea with the conversation about Wertheimer’s studies that lead to the book Productive Thinking. His research ranged from “how children arithmetic to how Einstein developed his theory of relativity” (Goodwin 2014).
7a) Lewin’s studies of leadership
7b) I would like to learn more about this topic because I think it would be interesting to read into his findings and what kind of impact they have had on the way we look at leadership today.
8) When reading about Wertheimer and Productive Thinking, I thought about John Dewey’s contributions to the education system. Both attempted to understand how children learn.
9) Hedwig Von Restorff, Von Restorff Effect, Kurt Lewin, Approach/Avoidance Conflict, approach-approach conflict, avoidance-avoidance conflict, approach-avoidance conflict, social psychology, leadership, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, phi phenomenon, Productive Thinking, John Dewey
1a) One thing I found interesting in this chapter is figure ground segregation. Figure ground segregation has to do with an object and its background. It’s all about perception and what belongs to the figure you’re looking at vs the background. It was first brought up by Edgar Rubin who was a not a gestalt psychologist, but used the gestalt ideas to back up his segregation idea.
1b) Learning about perception is just kind of neat to me. It’s interesting to me how our eyes work and are able to see things, sometimes when they aren’t there. We’ve covered a bit of it in biological psychology this semester and this kind of reminds me of the mach bands, and how we kind of make up an edge in our head that’s darker than it really is.
2a) Another thing I found interesting is the Von Restoroff Effect. Hedwig Von Restoroff came to the 2conclusion that the things that stick out when trying t2o memorize things, is easier to remember; Like highlighting important text in a book for example.
2b) It’s interesting to me because it works! For some odd reason things I highlight (I’m a big highlighter), or things I write in big capital letters, things like that, come to me easier than others. I’m not sure why it works like that exactly, the textbook never says, but it is like that. Maybe its spending the extra time making it stand out against others, or maybe just the action of making it different (highlighting or whatever) is just enough to make it stick.
3a) I really liked Lewin’s field theory. Lewin felt it isn’t just the environment that affects people’s behavior, but how people perceive their environment along with what’s going on with them at the present time. He called the person’s environment and things that are affecting them their ‘life space’.
3b) I really liked his work on this theory. I’m surprised I haven’t read about it before, but maybe I have and just forgot about it. I just found it very interesting because it makes so much sense to me. Like for example, you can see a person who you think lives the perfect life, they have everything they need. Instead of being a happy stress free person because all their needs are met they are a total nut case. They are even more miserable than the homeless person down the street. Bu maybe they don’t desire to be taken care of, maybe being taken care of makes them feel like they have no purpose. While some of us would perceive their environment as perfect, they’re living in hell. I just find that interesting, kind of the walk in another person’s shoes kind of thing.
4a) One thing I found uninteresting is the history behind the Gestalt theory. It seemed long and drug out and not important to the overall theory.
4b) It was just dull to me. I am not a history person and did not care to know where these ideas came from. I felt it was extra reading that wasn’t needed for the understanding of the concept.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most important part of this chapter to help us understand history is how we perceive things. Like Lewin’s field theory, it is what we perceive our environment to be that is affecting us. I take this into account when thinking about why people in the past did what they did. Historical figures that have theories that are known across the world that don’t make sense to us now can make more sense if we think of it with the field theory in mind.
6) We’ve gone from the enlightenment and the beginning of thinking for ourselves, to many different theories that explain things to our last chapter on intelligence. This chapter while still covering theories to explain things, does so over different things then why we do certain things. Instead of looking at something more concrete like intelligence, it discussed perception and how we perceive things differently. I feel this chapter got away from the theories of behaviors and focused more on how perception works and why it works that way. Perception is important because it is what comes before thought formation. We can all see the same thing and perceive it differently and come up with different conclusions.
7a) I would like to know more about Lewin’s research her did with Barker when he came to Iowa. The book mentioned it a bit, but did not go into much detail. I know it had to do with children and dedifferentiation.
7b) I just thought it was neat he came to Iowa and did research. It said he tried to recreate Berlin and I think that’s pretty neat. Also since it has to do with children it interests me, I’m always on the lookout for learning about children’s behavior.
8) I thought a lot about my biology of psychology class. All the perception and visual things are things we’ve vaguely covered in class. It’s weird to me how our eyes play tricks on us. How they are just looking at something and us seeing it, yet they’re making sense of things as well, even to the point where they make up missing information. My mom was an artist and really liked the distorted pictures, like optical illusions. I thought of her when reading this chapter. I also have a schizophrenic cousin who is an artist that comes up with crazy stuff that messes with your perception, I thought about her artwork as well.
9) figure ground segregation, Von Resteroff Effect, Field Theory, Life Space, Lewin, Hedwig Von Resteroff, dedifferentiation, Barker
1.
a. Something I found interesting was the idea of field theory.
b. The reason I found this so interesting is because I interpreted it more like “to understand one’s actions, you must walk in their footsteps, which is something that I’ve always believed in. Field theory is defined in the book that understanding a person’s behavior requires knowing about all the forces acting on a person at that given moment. He called this particular field in a person’s life their life space. I thought it was very interesting and probable that this could have originated from a psychologist.
2.
a. Another thing I found interesting in this chapter was apparent motion.
b. The concept of apparent motion is the idea that stationary things would appear to move under certain controlled circumstances. The reason I found this so interesting is because my brother is a cinematographer and every time we watch a movie he points out things caused my apparent motion. To learn that this actually stems from psychology is cool because it makes me think that you can actually find psychology in everything.
3.
a. The last thing I found extremely interesting in this chapter is Gestalt and perception.
b. The reason I found this so interesting is blatantly because perception is everything and everyone’s perception is different based on many factors, probably similar to Wertheimer’s “Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms. People’s perceptions come from surrounding factors, proximity to the situation or person, and how people process that information.
4. Something I didn’t like about this chapter was The Zeigarnik Effect. The reason I didn’t like this was because the research all seemed rather inconclusive to me, as well as fairly irrelevant to what we were reading about in the chapter. The fact that unfinished tasks were more likely to be remembered opposed to finished tasks seems like a bit of a shot in the dark to me.
5. The thing I read in this chapter that I think would be most useful in understanding psychology would be the field theory. I believe this is so useful because perception is everything and with the wrong state of mind, nothing can be understood within the history of psychology considering psychology started off pretty rough and patchy.
6. This chapter builds on the previous chapter because the previous chapters began to discuss perception and the senses, then this chapter goes deeper into detail about perception and the laws that go with perception. So basically this chapter just goes deeper into detail about perception and what creates perception.
7. I would definitely like to learn more about field theory. The reason I would like to learn more about this is because I believe to be a truly knowledgeable person (psychologist) you must understand every aspect of ones situation and/or their day-to-day environment. I would like to learn more about how understand one person can help us to help them in the long run.
8. While I was reading this chapter, I couldn’t stop thinking about field space and perception and how they coincide with each other. I feel like field space is a type of perception they helps us to understand people and the environment. I also feel like behaviorists could gain a lot of knowledge from people by studying things and them with a perspective coming from their shows.
9. Wertheimer, field theory, perception, apparent motion, Zeigarnik the
1a&b)Carl Stumpf’s auditory work. I was initially interested by the section because it studies the ability of musicians and I was very deeply involved with music for most of my life. Stumpf himself was a musician as well as a scientist and worked with auditory perception of music. He argued with Wundt in that Stumpf believed that experienced musicians would be able to differentiate between two simultaneous tones better than laboratory workers trained to do so. In other words, Stumpf believed that “direct experience” was more important than “abstract reductionism”.
2a&b) Wolfgang Kohler’s research. Wolfgang Kohler is cited in the textbook as being the most famous of the American gestaltists and after reading his biography section it isn’t hard to see why. He conducted fascinating studies with apes at a primate colony in the Canary Islands during World War I, and there were even claims made that he could have possibly been a spy for the Germans at that time. Whether or not he was a spy was never completely substantiated, but in World War II he was very opposed to the Nazi regime and wrote against the “dismissal of Jewish professors”. His most famous works were his book that dealt with his time at the ape colony and his Gestalt Psychology that challenged American behaviorism.
3a&b) figure-ground segregation. I found this section interesting because I have always been intrigued by optical illusions and the examples on page 289 caught my eye. The idea of figure-ground segregation was described first by Edgar Rubin in 1915 and details an important aspect of our perception that allows us to distinguish between whole figures and the backgrounds they exist on. In these perceptions it is typical that the figure is usually perceived before the background, but with effort the background can be seen as a figure itself and not an unformed background.
4a&b) field theory. This chapter wasn’t really as interesting to me as the past few had been, mostly because I couldn’t find anything in the chapter that I could personally relate to. Perception isn’t something that I am particularly interested in and the section on field theory just didn’t grab me at all. It seems to me that these distinctions complicate something that could be understood in simpler terms just as easily, but that is just my opinion.
5) I think the most important thing to take away from this chapter in the understanding of the history of psychology would be an understanding of gestalt psychology as a whole, but if I had to specify I think Koffka’s distinction between the geographical and behavioral environment was valuable. This difference is categorized by how the world exists in reality as opposed to how we perceive the world to be. The importance of this is in the point at which the two environments meet and how our perceptions differ, the text states that our behavior is much more influenced by the behavioral environment.
6) This chapter built more on previous installments by adding another layer to the historical understanding to the picture of psychology, but also includes the new school of thought of gestaltism. More broadly this chapter illustrated the importance of the field of perception within psychology, and at the end of the chapter other schools of thought that would become vital to the growth of the field.
7a&b) One of the only items from this chapter that I found myself genuinely curious about and enjoyed reading was the history of Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler. Both men’s lives and research were equally remarkable and I would like to learn more about the research of their early academic careers and how this influenced their research as they grew as experimental psychologists. I am also curious about what moved these men to study and become involved in the gestaltist movement.
8) My thoughts during this chapter were mostly that I was happy that it was over so we could move on to behaviorism in the next chapter. The material really just didn’t capture me and made it difficult to really get into and think deeply on, it makes me wish that we had class more often in that I would have been able to hear more about the material and possibly been able to connect with it more after learning about it through Dr. MacLin’s lense. I feel like the last few chapters were so interesting to me that this one might have been average but in comparison to the previous, read especially dull.
9) *terms* Carl Stumpf, Wolfgang Kohler, figure-ground segregation, Edgar Rubin, field theory, Koffka, geographical environment, behavioral environment
1) From this chapter I liked the section on principles of perceptual organization because it talked about optical illusions. Optical illusions are really fascinating because two people could see something completely different while looking at the exact same image. It was very interesting to learn that color played a big part in this. This section also talks about figure-ground segregation, which is the human tendency to separate figure from their backgrounds. This plays a huge role in optical illusions. According to this idea figures have characteristics that are very distinct with help distinguish them from their surrounding background. The border of the figure seems to “belong” to it. Wertheimer talks about this in his paper “Laws on Organization in Perpetual Forms.” He demonstrated his ideas on the principle of proximity and similarity by the visual organization of dots and the principle of good continuation with wavy lines.
2) Another interesting topic was Hedwig Von Restorff and the Von Restorff effect. Von Restorff researched human cognition. She did some research on the way that we recall numbers and patterns. She found that if in a code on random letters, there was a 3 digit number then the numbers were the part most likely to be remembered later on. The numbers provided a sharp contrast to the nonsense letters. This was then dubbed the Von Restorff effect: anytime something stands out in a range of information, then that is what is most likely to be remembered.
3) I found Kurt Lewin’s work to be very interesting as well. He has some very interesting ideas on conflicts which made a huge contribution to the field of Gestalt psychology. Lewin developed three models of conflict: approach-approach conflict, approach-avoidance conflict, and avoidance-avoidance conflict.
4) The least interesting part of this chapter for me was the long section on Lewin’s early life and career. I know that is very important to understand where people come from in order to known why they think they way that they do, but this was such a lengthy section. I in fact didn’t even read it very thoroughly. I got bored and started skimming about half way through the second paragraph.
5) Before reading this chapter I had no idea as to what Gestalt psychology was. This chapter helped to open my eyes to a new area of psychology that I did not know even existed. The previous chapter talked about behaviorism so this was an expansion of new topics.
6) One continuing theme in the entire history of psychology and in psychology today is the use of animals for testing. The previous chapter talked about psychologist such as Thorndike and is use of cats in the puzzle boxes and this chapter talks about the use of apes in Kohler’s studies. I am very curious as to why, other than ethical reasons, we use different kinds of animals for different things.
7) I would like to learn more about optical illusions. I feel like what was discussed in this chapter was just the tip of the iceberg. I can only imagine that there is much more to know when my roommate spent an entire day talking about them in one of her classes.
8) While reading, I noted that most of this information was published right before WWII and I can’t wait to hear about how the war might have changed the way that we look at psychology.
Terms: figure-ground segregation, Wertheimer, “Laws on Organization in Perpetual Forms”, proximity, similarity, good continuation, Hedwig Von Restorff, Von Restorff effect, Kurt Lewin, Gestalt, approach-approach conflict, approach-avoidance conflict, avoidance-avoidance conflict, Kohler
1a) What did you find interesting?
One of the things that I found interesting was the little insert about Wolfgang Kohler and how he could have been a German spy while he was on the Canary Islands studying apes. This was something that many people had suspected the scientists of, but one person in particular that Ronald Ley, a psychologist who went back to the islands to look for the original site of Kohler’s work, found was a man named Manuel who helped handle and care for the animals while Kohler studied them said was actually true.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was interesting to me because I love history and I am particularly interested in WWI and WWII and how many people were thought to be spies. I think it’s really interesting that it just so happened that a lot of alliance ships happened to go down near the islands in which Kohler was on. I also thought it was really interesting that his first wife was almost a coauthor of the book, but he later changed his mind (maybe when the marriage started to fail?) and so only her sketch and initials are all that is indicated that she did for the research.
2a) What did you find interesting?
I thought that Behavioral and Geographical environments was interesting. Behavioral environment is how we view the world, while the geographical environment is how the world actually is. Behavioral environment is what determines how we act.
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was interesting to me because I feel like this is really accurate and true in many situations. For example, I was home for the weekend, and complaining to my older brother (who did not go to college) about my course load and working part-time and how I can’t wait to graduate and take a year or so off to work a normal job and come home to relax. He laughed at me and said that he wishes he could trade places with me because it would be ‘so easy to go to class and read every day and work just a few hours a week.’ He and I are looking at the same things (going to school and working part-time versus working full time) and yet we view it in two completely different ways.
3a) What did you find interesting?
I thought that the Zeigarnik effect was really interesting. This is when your memory works better when something is incomplete rather than when it is complete, and is named after a Russian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik, who was one of Lewin’s students.
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought this was interesting, because it was a theory based on one person who took their orders at a café and could know what each person bought until the bill was settled, in which they could not remember who had ordered what. Lewin believed that the orders not being settled gave tension to the waiter and thus he needed to remember it, but once the order was paid, the tension was released, and he could forget it. I have experienced this myself when it comes to remembering how much I spent for the day. Once I have it written down, however, I couldn’t tell someone without looking how much I spent at each store, but before it is in my budget, I know the exact amounts down to the penny.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I thought that the part about Gestalt psychology in America was the least interesting thing in the chapter.
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I guess it wasn’t very interesting to me because it could have been shorter; Americans thought that Gestalt psychology was an addition rather than a way to classify all psychology, and didn’t have a lot of evidence to back it up and was more theory than anything. Overall, it was not a bad addition, it just wasn’t nearly as interesting as what the rest of the chapter.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that the principles of perceptual organization and behavioral and geographical environments will be the most useful because they are the foundation of what we now know about perception and Gestalt psychology. These show how we organize things in our mind and how we fill in the blanks of things that are not there (which is called closure) and how we also organize things based on similarity, proximity, and in a smoothly flowing manner (called good continuation). We also want our perceptions to be as close to reality as possible (called pragnanz).
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Gestalt psychology and this chapter builds upon what we have learned in previous chapters because it goes beyond simple intelligence and onto how we perceive things and memory, and how we learn, which is more in depth on intelligence, because how we learn and how we commit things to memory is what makes us intelligent. If I memorize dates for a test, and then pass the test, if you asked me those same questions at a later date, I would score worse than before because the tension of knowing those dates would have passed. This also built upon previous chapters because it goes beyond evolution and psychophysics and starts to look into things that cannot be seen or easily measured.
7a) what topic would you like to learn more about?
I’d like to learn more about behavioral and geographical environments.
7b) Why?
It’s just something that is really interesting to me, and how two people can stand side by side and look at something in a totally different way, just based on what they know or who they are. I have always found that interesting, and I’m not quite sure what my questions about it are, except why that is.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking a lot about how we look at the world in our own special lens, and how amazing that is. I was also thinking a lot about how I learned things while going to school that I couldn’t for the life of me probably remember now, and how my mom always used to say to me while I was growing up that she has ‘probably forgotten more stuff than [I] have learned’ and just how true that really is. I remember learning the states and their capitals were when I was in middle school, but I know for a fact that I couldn’t name them all correctly now, because the tension and the need to know is no longer there. I think that’s sort of sad in a way because my teacher spent weeks teaching us where the states were and what their capital cities were and I spent a lot of time learning it. But it just wasn’t something that was relevant in day to day life and so the need to remember them faded.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Wolfgang Kohler, behavioral environment, geographical environment, Bulma Zeigarnik, Lewin, The Zeigarnik effect, principles of perceptual organization, closure, similarity, proximity, good continuation, pragnanz
1a) Wolfgang Kohler
1b) I found Kohler interesting not only because he was the first to work with apes and begin to study them in a means that is now fairly large today; comparing apes with humans to learn about their habits but Kohler himself was interesting. I thought that it was interesting that Kohler involved his wife in the study, the fact that he wanted his wife involved because of what she was capable of doing, beings that she was calmer with the apes was interesting. So many women of this time were ignored and instead he wanted her to participate in the study in order to help him. Then there was the emergence of the First World War. The fact that Kohler, who was German himself, stood up of the Jewish academics of that time. The fact that he was determined enough to write a letter to Hitler himself to tell him how ignorant he was for ridding all of the schools of any teachers/professors who were of Jewish decent even though they were teaching and emphasizing German ways was absurd was interesting to me. A man that you would think would just do what he was told because of all the consequences being brought about on anti-Nazi Germans and Jewish people but instead he stood up for what was right until he couldn’t take it anymore so then he left to America.
2a) Lewin and the Field Theory
2b) This was interesting to me because it was something that was about humans and how they reach a calm state in their lives. The fact that there are many components that come into play and how Lewin described them through his circle diagram. The fact that every person has a certain amount of needs that need to be met in order to be happy in their lives. It is when their wants being met versus their want’s being left are what help a person to live a life in equilibrium. When a person is not able to meet their needs and find disequilibrium is when they develop a life of unhappiness. Their desire to meet their wants creates an uncomfortable strain in their life to meet their desires but not knowing how.
3a) Lewin’s Differentiation Degrees
3b) I found this interesting because it is something that I found interesting when I took my first psychology class. This theory of how the brain evolves as a child gets older. The fact that the child didn’t want to lose sight of the rock so she went about keeping eye contact on the rock while looking between her legs and walking backwards in order to maintain sight of the rock and still be able to sit on the rock. How upon a child getting older this approach would change while their problem solving skills change. Such as a child being shown a bowl with the same amount of water in it as a tall glass then being asked which contains more water, a younger child will always choose the taller glass because it is taller so therefore there is more. This whole idea on how a child’s mind develops and grows is interesting to me.
4a) Max Wertheimer
4b) Wertheimer was not all that interesting to me because I agree with what the critics of his study were saying. Everything that he was doing was related to what someone saw but there wasn’t much variation in what he was doing. Such as in the beginning with apparent motion, when he was using the two lights but because they were moving so fast the participants saw them as being one light that was moving instead of two lights. The fact that the eye wasn’t able to pick up on the movement was something to be noted but at the same time what else did he do in order to test perception rather than just the sight of the participants? When he moved on the phi phenomenon though it just appeared to be the same thing except now there were 3 lights, the whole experiment just seemed to lack a lot of things to prove his hypotheses, things that never seemed to get explained.
5) This chapter and how it was the first time that they were actually bringing Psychology to America, the reason why they had to come to America was sad but useful knowledge. It helps you to understand because again we are going to perception and reality depending on how you look at it, such as the concepts of Behavior Environment and Geographical environment. The fact that not everything is what it appears to be and leading into the differentiation perception of children. Everything is based off of how the mind develops over time and over time something that appeared to be not so relevant can be something of great importance.
6) This chapter relates to other chapters because it is building on the functions of the mind and how psychology evolved into more areas of learning. When they brought in the soldiers and how they were affected as well and now studying children and how their perceptions and problem solving skills evolve as they grow.
7a) The area of behavioral versus geographical environments
7b) I would like to learn more because it think this falls into the perception versus reality again. The story that was provided with the section about how the man had traveled and upon arriving at the inn he was just tired and knew that it was traitorous outside but did not realize the amount of danger that he really put himself in. After being informed of what he had just done the awe that came over him in regards to the fact that he just went over a lake that if one crack would’ve occurred he would’ve died changed his whole perception of the situation all because the reality was much more intense.
8) While reading this chapter, more towards the end I was just thinking about in my intro to Psychology class and how my teacher taught the differentiation concept by recording and testing her children. It is amazing the differences in just a few years of development can actually make.
9) Max Wertheimer, Apparent Motion, Phi Phenomenon, Behavioral Environment, Geographical Environment, Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, Kurt Lewin, Differentiation
1a) What did you find interesting?
Zeigarnik Effect
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The Zeigarnik effect is when your memory works better when a task is not yet completed. An example of this would be remembering everything for a psych test and receiving a good grade on this test. Then, after you finish the test, you forget everything that you studied. I feel that this effect is a very accurate one. I feel this way almost every time I take a test.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Law of Simplicity
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
This law states that if there are two ways to solve a problem, we will use the simplest one. This seems to make complete sense. I know that if there is an easier way to get something done, I know that I am more likely to use the easier way than the harder way.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Apparent Motion
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Wertheimer was the one that studied apparent motion. He began by looking at hoe people saw or perceived lights. Basically what he found was that if he were to flash one light on one side of the room and another at the other side a few seconds later, the lights were perceived as one moving light not two separate lights.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
I thought Gestalt was a little boring. It is not that I did not like him or his experiments, I just found his section to be a little dry.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think Kevin Lewin will be the most useful to understand in this chapter. I think he had many different experiments and contributions to psychology that are useful to understand.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
This chapter built onto the discussion on perceptions and learning. It also builds on how psychologist have changed how they look at and study the brain.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I think that I would like to learn more about Kevin Lewin. I feel as though he had a fairly big impact on psychology and it would be useful to look at his life and psychology experiments in more detail.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought a lot about perception while going through this chapter. I was thinking about how I could perceive something differently than someone else, and how we would be able to discuss our different views on perception.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Perception, Kevin Lewin, Gestalt, Wertheimer, apparent motion, law of simplicity, Ziegarnik Effect
1a) What did you find interesting?
Apparent Motion/Phi Phenomenon
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Looking at it now from the future, the concept behind this experiment is pretty simple and doesn't seem like it has any practicality nor importance other than that it explains a certain perception trait that we all have. But when I wrapped my head around it and started to imagine the experiment in my head, then started learning about the different theories behind the occurrence of the transitional image, my mind was pretty blown. I never imagined how something so simple could be so complex and in general, how complex our brain and sensory neurons REALLY are.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Field Theory
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Growing up, I've always wondered why certain people think certain ways, thinking patterns and personality types revealed in the Myers-Briggs test and the rationality behind them, and so the Field theory's ability to break down the complexities and intricacies of a person's life, or at least its attempts to by defining certain components and using them in relation to eachother to try and get an accurate depiction of a person's thoughts in accordance to his present life is crazy. It's inspiring to see Lewin produce so many well-developed contributions in his lifetime, I hope to do the same.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Zeignarik Effect
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Reading about this topic was incredibly interesting due to the countless occurrences that I've been in that were similar to it! It makes sense when the conclusion talks about the "unrelieved tension of an incomplete task."
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Koffka and Kohler
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
In no attempt to undermine their contributions, but I personally feel that they are the outshined by Lewin's works and very forgettable to me. I feel like my interest was more rooted in Lewin's work because of my personal connections with them.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Expansion of a new form of psychology seems to undergo a friendly competitive race, and that although theories are hypothetical, they are still practical when applied correctly.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
Previous chapters have been about application of psychology, and now within this chapter we are beginning to see the rise of a new type of psychology, and in turn seeing the science expand and flesh itself out through the numerous contributions of psychologists.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Either the Zeignarik effect or Field theory, as I can't really choose between either!
7b) Why?
Both really interest me in different ways, while the Zeignarik effect is stimulating in a way that I have a personal connection because its more or less a daily occurrence for me, the Field theory sparks my curiosity and hits a sensitive nerve as it's something I've always wanted to be able to do and learn about - now I know what the term is!
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I thought about how short life is (I also read the chapter right after a philosophy class) and how reading about Lewin and his multiple contributions for the field of psychology really inspired me to make my life meaningful. Lately I've been really questioning what I'm going to sum my life up to, or what my magnum opus will be.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
apparent motion, phi phenomenon, gestalt, koffka, kohler, zeignarik effect, lewin, field theory
1) What did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?
Geographical vs. behavioral environment. This is interesting because this is question often pondered in philosophers. It is interesting that there is no psychological research to back his theory, only a story to clarify how this theory works. These are particularly interesting when compared to Lewin’s life space theory because Lewin seems to describe the same concept but his has more components and is more mathematical.
2) What did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?
It is mentioned that the rise of Nazi Germany caused academic freedom in universities to disappear along with psychological research. This affected many German psychologists professional and personal lives, including Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler. What is surprising is that these events were so unyielding that they affected their lives whether these scientists were Jewish or not. It is easy to forget that other things are going on in the world at the same time these psychologists are developing theories when the world is relatively peaceful, but it is interesting to see the relationship between and effects of world history on historical psychology.
3) What did you find interesting? Why was it interesting to you?
The Gestalt Organizing principles are pretty interesting because these principles are a major concept in perceptual psychology. These Gestalt Organizing Principles explain why optical illusions can mislead the human mind. I have learned about these principles before, but I was told that Gestalt came up with all of these on his own. I didn’t realize that several of these were taken from Westheimer’s, “Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms”.
4) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting? Why wasn't it interesting to you?
The Zeigernik effect. I feel like this would have been a much more interesting topic if this had been written differently. The way the author wrote this is he gave a lengthy description of the experiement that was used, including the amount of participants and complicated descriptions of the experiment, and at the end it is said that this is how the Zeigarnik effect came to be. It would have been much clearer to me had the author stated how Zeigarnik disagreed with Lewin’s research, what she sought to prove, and then gone into all of this.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter makes it apparent that Gestalt psychology is a very important aspect to the history of psychology in general, so Gestalt Organizing Principles will probably be very useful to know and those who contributed to these principles. It is probably also important to realize the contributions these psychologists made outside of Gestalt psychology and influenced other areas such as social psychology, developmental psychology, etc.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
We previously studied other major psychologists in Germany, such as Wundt, but there’s several more to add to that list. It also reflects back on chapter 1 with external history because the author describes how much Nazi Germany affected psychological research during this time.
7) What topic would you like to learn more about? Why?
I would like to learn more about the Zeigernik effect. It is said how she came to find this, but I’d like to see how it has been applied past her study and possibly in other areas of psychology.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
When I think about psychology, this is not a topic that comes to mind. However, I do see the value in learning about this because it is important to the history of psychology. I wonder if what is gone over in this chapter will be expanded further in other chapters. As I already stated before, I thought a lot about how interesting it is that the emergence of Nazi Germany had on historical psychology.
Geographical environment. Behavioral environment. Life space. Gestalt Organizing principles.
1.The first thing I found interesting was the section on the origins of Gestalt psychology. Gestalt psychology has its roots in German philosophy and is thought to be attributed to the minds of physicist Ernst Mach, philosopher and psychologist Christian Von Ehrenfels, Franz Brentano, and Carl Stumpf. The main thought of this new psychology was the importance of looking at the whole instead of breaking things down into constituent parts. Ernst Mach supported this idea by writing in one of his texts that are many “space forms” resist being separated into “basic parts”. The example used in the book is the idea of the square. There are certain spatial features that make a square have its square qualities and you cannot break those qualities down into smaller qualities without changing the square. Christian Von Ehrenfels, who apparently was a gifted musician as well as Austrian Philosopher, came to a similar conclusion when he played a song in differing keys and instruments. He noted that, while the notes may change, the melody itself did not change and the song remained the same. This concept is known as form quality. Brentano, a Viennese philosopher, spoke of a system called an act psychology in where the most important thing about studying the mind is how the mind perceives events, and how the mind functions as an active entity. At about the same time as all these discoveries, Musician and experimentalist Carl Stumpf noted that when listening to two pure tones it seemed to create a new tone experience that was different than its component tones.
2b.I found this interesting because Gestalt psychology is often briefly mentioned in the psychology classes I have taken but I have never really understood what it really is or how it came about. This section helped me to understand the concept of Gestalt psychology a little better and it was a good introduction.
2a. The next section I found intriguing was the close-up on Wolfgang Kohler. Wolfgang Kohler had the rare opportunity to go conduct research on the problem solving capabilities of apes on the Canary Island of Tenerife. His research there started just shortly before the onset of World War I, which led him to be effectively stuck on the island for many years. Decades after this research was conducted, a psychologist by the name of Ronald Ley went to the islands in an attempt to locate Kohler’s original research station. While there he ran into an old man named Manuel Gonazalez y Garcia, an old man who claimed he was the caretaker and handler of the apes when Kohler was conducting his research. This man mentioned that Kohler wasn’t there just to conduct research on the apes but was also there as a German spy. Manuel said that there was a wireless radio where Kohler would give information about shipping lanes to the Germans. It was noted that many ships were indeed sunk around the islands during the war. However, many see the claim as debatable. It could have been that the radio was used for simple communication to the main land. Kohler himself even mentioned the situation in some of his correspondences saying that many Englishmen took him as a German spy and thought he was using his study on apes as a pretext to give the Germans information. There is no definitive proof one way or the other that he was a spy but his research on apes was some of his most influential work.
2b. I found this interesting because of the intrigue surrounding the situation. You have a German psychologist essentially stranded on an island conducting research, but then several decades later it comes about that he may have actually been a national spy for the military as well!? Sounds like the makings of a good fictional story.
3a. Another interesting passage in the text has to do again with Kohler but this time on his insights of his studies on the Apes. While on the island Kohler wanted to test the problem solving of the apes. He had disagreed with Thorndike’s earlier research on the area of problem solving. Thorndike thought problem solving was a mechanistic process involving trial and error until successes eventually led to erroneous ways being abandoned. Kohler, who stayed true to his Gestalt ways, thought Thorndike made the mistake of not letting his cats see the entire field which made them unaware of an overall solution. Kohler thought solutions to problems occurred when one could see the entire problem and when one could rearrange the problem elements into new configurations. Kohler thought that problems were solved with insight, which to him was a perceptual quality that occurred quickly once the components of a problem had been reconfigured. Kohler corrected this by laying out problems in where his apes could see the entire field. In one of his most famous cases he laid a banana out of a reach of his most intelligent ape. The ape eventually started playing with two sticks. He coincidentally was holding the sticks in such a way that they were in a straight line. He then quickly stuck the skinny stick in the bigger stick, making one long stick, and used it to get the out of reach banana. It seemed Kohler was on to something.
3b. I found this interesting because it’s amazing how insightful the ape was to solve the problem in a such a seemingly complex way.
4a. Something that I did not find as interesting was the principles of perceptual organization. Gestalt psychology has come to be known a psychology of perception. Even though Gestalt psychology encompasses much more than just perception, there are general gestalt organizing principles that have come to be included in most intro psych classes. The First organizing principle is known figure-ground. This phenomena is our tendency to separate whole figures from their backgrounds. Figures apparently have distinct characteristics that allow them to be isolated from their backgrounds. Proximity is another principle. Things that are close to each other in proximity are perceived to belong together in a group. If proximity is held constant we then organize things in terms of similarity. Things that are similar are perceived as belonging in the same group. The other organizing principle is known as good continuation, and that is our tendency for us to organize things that flow smoothly, together. All of these principles apparently have something in common and that is that or perceptions seem to mirror reality. When there is a situation we do not understand we tend to organize information in a way that best makes sense. This quality has become to be known as pragnanz.
4b. I did not find this interesting because I did not fully understand some of the principles. I guess I would like some more elaboration on some the concepts, such as good continuation.
5. The most important thing to know from the chapter is probably understanding just what Gestalt psychology encompasses. I used to think it just had to do with perceptual phenomena, but it really is a whole way of thinking.
6. This chapter continues to build on our understanding of psychology as whole. We have been introduced over the weeks to different realms of thinking in psychology and this chapter introduces us to the realm of Gestalt psychology.
7. I would like to learn more about Kohler’s time studying apes.
7b. I would like to learn more about it because it just seemed like an interesting time in history for psychology (WWI) and the fact that he was pretty much marooned on an island studying apes is intriguing in itself.
8. I thought about what I had previously known about Gestalt Psychology. In cognitive psychology I thought Gestalt psychology just had to do with perception. Then I had an abnormal psychology class where I learned about Gestalt psychology from a clinical perspective which espoused self-actualization in therapy settings. I did not really know exactly what Gestalt psychology encompassed until I read this chapter.
9. Insight, figure ground, proximity, similarity, good continuation, pragnanz, form quality, act psychology.
1a) What did you find interesting?
Field Theory
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought this was interesting because of the way it is studied. The idea is that in order to understand why a person does what the do is because of their surroundings and their personal motivations. You have to fully understand the reasoning behind why they choose to make those actions by seeing from their perspective, and I thought that was pretty neat.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Phi Phenomenon
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought Wertheimer’s idea of phi phenomenon was cool because I find the study of perception to be interesting. He conducted studies using three lights that were flashed at particular times. It would appear that there were only two lights because of the way they were flashed. Wertheimer came to the conclusion that we perceive things in a holistic form, not as the different parts that make up the whole.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Figure-Ground
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
I really like optical illusions, so I liked learning about Rubin’s figure-ground segregation. I never knew the tricks behind optical illusions. In the book, it explains that when we look at a picture, we separate the object from the background. When the background is an alternate image, we have to change up our perception to see the other image.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
Kurt Lewin’s Early Life and Career
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I am not a huge fan of the biographies in this book. Although I understand that his early life might have had an impact on his reason for doing research in the field of psychology, I would much rather read about his contributions and how they affected the field.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I believe that knowing how people take in visuals and information is a big deal. Our individual perceptions of the world are very different from one another, so getting a feel for how people see things and learn based on their perceptions is very important, especially as a future educator.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
I have noticed that quite a few chapters have talked about human perception, this chapter being one of them. I really like studying perception so that might be why it stands out to me. This chapter also compares Kohler’s animal studies with Thorndike’s studies.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Figure-Ground
7b) Why?
Like I said before, I think optical illusions are cool. Before reading this chapter, I didn’t know the reason why I saw what I saw when looking at one. I would like to learn more about optical illusions and why we perceive them in a certain way.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I was thinking about how I have never learn about Gestalt psychology. I have never heard that term before. Don’t get me wrong, I knew about the different psychologists such as Wertheimer and Lewin, and I’ve heard the phrase “The whole of the experience is different from the sum of it’s individual parts”... But the term ‘Gestalt’ was brand new to me.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
field theory, phi phenomenon, Wertheimer, figure-ground. Rubin, Kurt Lewin, Gestalt
This chapter was difficult to read at times but I was still able to find a few topics that I found interesting. One of those topics was Wolfgang Kohler who was the best known gestalist of the three originators who also included Kurt Koffka and Max Wertheimer. He was elected president to the APA in 1958. He was invited to research a colony of primates at Tenerife one of the Canary Islands. Some claim that he was positioned there to be a German spy during World War 2 but no concrete evidence was ever found. Kohler’s major work on the island dealt with insight and problem solving among apes while aiming to disprove Thorndike’s puzzle box experiments. Thorndike proposed that problem solving involves a process of trial and accidental success. Kohler believed that solving problems occurs when the entire problem field can be viewed and can rearrange the elements to solve the problem.
Another topic I found interesting in this chapter was about Kurt Lewin. He was more interested in motivation, emotion, and personality and how these influenced human action. I was amazed to find that he served in World War 1 with Germany and survived trench warfare that eliminated an entire generation, and he walked out with an Iron Cross after being wounded. His major theory and contribution to gestalt theories was his field theory. He believed that to learn a person’s behavior one has to get to know all of the forces acting upon that person.
The third topic I found interesting was the Zeigarnik effect theorized by Bulma Zeigarnik. This theory came about from an observational study by Lewin watching a waiter at a café remember exactly what someone ordered only if the bill still hadn’t been paid for, but once the bill had been paid for she forgot what they ordered. Zeigarnik’s study consisted of 164 students, teaches, and children and gave them between 18 and 22 simple tasks to complete. All of the subjects were allowed to finish half of the tasks but not allowed to complete the other half. She found that the tasks that were interrupted were almost 2 times more likely to be remembered than the uninterrupted ones. Thus her phenomenon states that memory is better for incomplete tasks rather than complete ones.
The topic I found the most uninteresting was the phi phenomenon and the apparent motion theory because for me they were very difficult to understand in words. It would have been much more beneficial for me to see these theories applied in person physically to understand how they work. Also this chapter was not a very interesting one compared to some others but I was still able to find some things that were interesting.
I think that the most useful thing from this chapter to understand the history of psychology was the Kohler ape insights. It was assumed that Thorndike’s theory about trial and error was correct to solve problems but Kohler argued that by seeing the entire problem from all sides and being able to manipulate the pieces of the problem was more likely to be the way problems were solved. After these studies it confirmed that Thorndike’s theory was correct and that trial and error is a common theory used to solve problems.
This chapter builds upon previous chapters because in continues to incorporate sensation and perception that have been found throughout many of the previous chapters as well as human intelligence and memory. The last chapter was over mental testing and intelligence which also included memory and this chapter added a few more elements about intelligence and memory.
I would like to learn a lot more about the Zeigarnik Effect because I found it to be the most interesting topic in this chapter. It explains so much that I can’t remember the things that I have completed but find it much easier to remember tasks that I have been interrupted during and so I just want to read about more studies that support this research and see if there is anything new that has been found.
While reading this chapter I didn’t have a lot of thought into the first half because I found it to be incredibly dry and wanted it to end, but towards the end of the chapter I began thinking more about memory and what things are more easily remember than others and thought about how much the Zeigarnik Effect actually effects my life every day.
Key Terms: Zeigarnik Effect, Kurt Lewin, Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler, Ape Insights, Thorndike, Field Theory, Phi Phenomenon, Apparent Motion.
Conner Hoyt
1a) What did you find interesting?
Behavioral vs Geographical environment
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Geographical environment literally is defined as what is reality, pure reality without human perception. Behavioral environment is how a person perceives reality and how he/she behaves accordingly. This is interesting to me because this theory is basically saying that we all have our own ‘world’ so to speak and is separate from everyone else’s. To me, it sparks the question of how other people perceive the world, and I’m not sure if I could ever get a straight answer from anyone, because to anyone reality is simply reality. I also wonder how differently a blind person perceives the world, or a schizophrenic who experiences hallucinations.
2a) What did you find interesting?
Lewin’s influence on Gestalt psychology
2b) Why was it interesting to you?
Lewin is a behavioralist who theorized that people’s internal factors can conflict with their environment’s factors, these conflicts creating a problem or tension in one’s life. Basically, it was an issue of wants and desires conflicting with everyday life’s necessities. This is interesting to me because this should be a generally known concept of life, though people seen to struggle with it. There doesn’t seem to be a clear diagnosis/treatment for this kind of behavior because everyone, to some degree, seems to go through this.
3a) What did you find interesting?
Pragnanz and Closure
3b) Why was it interesting to you?
Pragnanz is the law of simplicity in which our perceptions try to mirror reality as closely as possible. Closure is the occurance in which something isn’t quite right with our environment, or rather when we cannot understand something, and our brain tries to compensate for this by ‘filling in the gaps.’ This is interesting to me because it’s odd to think that if we cannot understand something our brain can ‘trick’ us in a way so that we can. It’s weird to think that we can be self-deceptive in that aspect.
4a) What one (1) thing did you find the least interesting?
From pages 296 to 307
4b) Why wasn't it interesting to you?
I found Lewin overall to be very boring. The chapter itself started out very interesting, talking of mind games, tricks, teaching monkeys and then went to Lewin’s studies. I was so uninterested that I could only briefly go over the text and get a minimal amount of information out of it.
5) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
In regards to how people perceive the world, I take a more philosophical approach to this and say that it’s very important to realize that the world to us may not be the same for our neighbors. I believe that one should have an open mind and try to acknowledge everyone else’s views and or perceptions. As one who studies many different religions, it’s very important for me to do just this, considering that I also have to acknowledge their culture and philosophies.
6) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to the previous chapters?
A few of the chapters have taken into consideration human perception, this being a huge one as it was its main topic. This chapter also compares Kohler’s animal studies with Thorndike’s studies.
7a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Gestalt organizing principals: figure-ground, proximity, similarity, good continuation
7b) Why?
Optical illusions are very interesting in how they so easily trick us. As I’ve already been over this in my cognitive psychology class, I still think that they are cool and would like to learn more about them, especially how we perceive them in a particular way.
8) What ideas related to what you were reading (what did you think about) did you have while reading the chapter?
I’ve never really quite understood Gestalt psychology, in its practice or what a ‘gestalt’ psychologist is. I still, to this day, do not know what they stand for or what they do in particular. So my general thinking over the chapter was focused on trying to figure out what they are, though I never came up with an answer. If I could define it in my terms, it seems to be a mixture of cognitive and behavioralist psychology—but that’s very broad which still leads me to confusion.
9) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Behavioral vs Geographical environment, Lewin, Gestalt Psychology, Pragnanz and Closure, Gestalt organizing principals: figure-ground, proximity, similarity, good continuation; cognitive and behavioralist psychology
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the topic of apparent motion/phi phenomenon to be interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
This was interesting to be me because I have alway been interested in perception and the different ways people can view the same situation. It was interesting read about how the participants in the study though that the red dot was just moving to a new spot. I have always been intrigued with how the brain and vision work together to perceive what is in our world.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Edgar Rubin to be the most interesting person in this chapter.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He was interesting to be because of his figure-ground phenomenon. I found this phenomenon intriguing because like I have already said I have alway been interested in how people can perceive the same thing differently. It is also interesting to me that our mind can change what we see when looking at a picture, for example the picture that can either be a vase or two faces, it just depends on where the person focuses their attention.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I think the overall message of this chapter was that perception plays a big role in the field of psychology.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
Yes, I found this chapter to be very interesting to me. I enjoyed reading about all of the different principles in Gestalt psychology such as, proximity, similarity, and good continuation.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think learning about the gestalt organizing principle will be the most useful, because these principles explain three different ways to perceive things. If we know that there are many ways to perceive the past we may look at the history of psychology differently than those around us.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter built on to what I had originally learned in my abnormal psychology class. We just learned the very basics, so this chapter added several details to my knowledge of Gestalt Psychology.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Edgar Rubin
6b) Why?
He was only briefly mentioned in the chapter. It stated that he was not a gestaltist, so I am interested in what his other contributions to psychology were.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I guess my biggest question is why or how can our mind change back and forth what we see in a picture?
Terms: apparent motion, phi phenomenon, Edgar Rubin, figure-ground phenomenon, proximity, similarity, good continuation, gestalt organizing principles, gestalt psychology
Chapter 9: Gestalt Psychology
1) It wasn’t really a topic I found interesting but a quote. I thought the quote about how Gestaltists were more interested in their theory than in the data they collected. They even viewed American psychology as limited because they were firmly committed to active programs of experimental research. This stuck out to me because it seemed to me to be parallel with the fact that people believe what they want to believe. It does not really matter if you have the facts, if a person has something in their head that they firmly believe is right it is hard to convince them otherwise. I think it reinstated the power of the mind and the stubbornness of peoples’ perceptions one they are established.
2) I found Max Wertheimer to be the most interesting because he is really the very beginning of Gestalt Psychology. He focused around perception by looking at proximity, if organization by similarity is effective, and the tendency to organize perceptions in a smoothly flowing direction. What I found most about him was how he was inspired by the development of motion pictures because it conveyed that he was a very abstract thinker. Also that he said his research was being viewed as a phenomenon, but he needed it to stand on its own first so it did not require any analysis to constituent parts.
3) I think the overall message of this chapter is just the development of one subfield of psychology. It was interesting to learn about the development of gestalt psychology and to follow along in the smaller details about how certain things were added or removed from the subfield. It helped me to be more aware of the smaller process involved in psychology and the development of the different areas and theories that impact the field as a whole in a much greater way. I enjoyed most in this chapter how it would incorporate how gestaltists would develop their theories and how they viewed other psychologist. It really helped me look at their work from an approach of historicism.
4) I think it will be useful to have more of an understanding on how Gestalt Psychology came to be and how the courses of the time greatly effected its development. After reading this chapter I have realized that to greater understand concepts and theories within the field, I should be more aware of the bigger picture that was happening during the course of their development. By doing that, I would have a more abstract understanding of the matter and see the material and findings from a more empathic way and paying more attention to the external history.
5) I have heard of this topic before but this chapter gave me much greater depth and understanding of Gestalt Psychology. But after reading more about it, it helped me build more on the information I already had on looking more on how cognitive categories are shaped by our experiences and the impact that they had on peoples’ views and theories.
6) I would like to learn more about the impact that World War II had on the field of psychology, especially in Germany. It talked about how psychology was basically nonexistent in Germany for approximately a decade after the war. I would love to learn more about this topic because it is something that I completely overlooked every time I have ever learned about World War II. You always think about how a country could rebuild after something like that but you only really consider how they rebuild relationships, government and the actual psychical and emotional damage. It never really crossed my mind how other things such as education, sciences, and art took a hit during that time frame as well.
7) I would want to ask what others thought to be the most impactful things brought out by Gestalt Psychology and how it has impacted our field as a whole. I would also like to ask others if and how they view Gestalt Psychology existing and playing a role in the field of psychology today.
8) Terminology Used: gestaltists, experimental research, perceptions, gestalt psychology, Max Wertheimer, subfield, historicism, external history, abstract, cognitive, perception, proximity, constituent parts,
1a) One topic that I found interesting in this section was the principles of perceptual organization.
1b) The reason why I found this topic so interesting was because all the pictures and diagrams caught my attention in the book, and made things more appealing to me. I learned about figure-ground, proximity, similarity, continuation, and closure very briefly in a previous class, but going more into depth and reminding myself what each principle is was pretty interesting to me.
2a) One person that I found interesting in this section was Max Wertheimer.
2b) I found Wertheimer interesting was because he was the one to found the idea of Gestalt Psychology. With this way of thinking, Wertheimer was able to describe many different principles that determine how our perceptions are actually organized.
3a) The overall message of the chapter was about how the idea of Gestalt Psychology was introduced and spread from Europe to the United States. This new way of thinking argued that understanding the mind and behavior could not be achieved by trying to dissect conscious experience into its sensory elements, or by reducing complex behavior to elementary stimulus-response units like psychologists have usually focused on. Instead they put more emphasis on whole experiences, thinking that the entirety of an experience is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
3b) I found this chapter pretty interesting because of all the pictures, illustrations, and diagrams that were throughout. It was cool to read since I could actually understand the chapter and ideas by looking at the examples and seeing how I perceive them compared to what the psychologists were saying.
4) What’s most useful about this chapter that can help with understanding the history of psychology. is the way that Gestalt Psychology thinking came about. If it weren’t for gestaltians and their skepticism about previous ways of thinking, there would have never been these new innovations and ways of thinking.
5) Like mentioned above, the skepticism and criticisms about the older ways of thinking psychologists had come up with is a way that history begins to build onto itself. This chapter built onto the last chapter in the way that different and new ideas can add onto and improve previous thinking.
6a) One topic I wouldn’t mind learning more about is the Zeigarnik effect.
6b) The term was mentioned in the chapter but wasn’t talked about as much as I would have liked. I would like it explained more about how an unfinished task is easier to recall than a finished one.
7) I don’t really have any questions about this section because it was pretty interesting and made a lot of sense. There would just be a few concepts like the Zeigarnik effect that I mentioned above that I wouldn’t mind being explained in more detail.
8) Terms: perceptual organization, figure-ground, proximity, similarity, continuation, closure, Max Wertheimer, Gestalt Psychology, skepticism, Zeigarnik effect
1a) I found the topic of the Zeigarnik effect to be very interesting.
1b) I found this effect to be interesting because of the real-world implications it has. It also describes why we remember some things, while forget other things right away. Not only does the importance of a task influence your memory of it, but also the completion or incompletion of that task.
2a) The person I found to be most interesting in this chapter was Kurt Lewin,
2b) I found Lewin to be interesting because of his wide variety of work in Developmental and Social psychology. As well as his work with action research, differentiation, field theory, and many other things. I also found him interesting because he had a connection to Iowa, where he conducted one of his most well-known studies “Frustration and Regression: An Experiment with Young Children”.
3a) I believe the main purpose of this chapter was to introduce Gestalt Psychology and what effects it has on modern psychology, today. I also believe that this chapter stresses the importance of the people who emphasized Gestalt Psychology and how they impacted the field.
3b) I found this chapter to be fairly interesting to me, just some of the concepts discussed were a little confusing. Especially the topics that dealt with perception, there were good descriptions of the various theories, I just think some of them would be more easily understood if I had someone explain to me how they worked.
4) The thing that I read in this chapter that will be most helpful in understanding the history of psychology, would be how Gestalt psychology was developed and who contributed to it’s popularity. Without the people discussed in this chapter, like Lewin, Kohler, Wertheimer, von Restorff, Duncker and Koffka, psychology may not be what it is today.
5) I’ve heard of most of the people that were discussed in this chapter from other psychology courses, I just didn’t know to what extent they contributed to the field of psychology. This chapter helped me to understand what impacts each of this important figures had on psychology, and how it shaped the field today.
6a) I would like to learn more about Pragnanz.
6b) This was also known as the law of simplicity. I found this interesting because it is amazing to think that even if given incomplete information, our brain is still able to complete an image or attempt too. There wasn’t a whole lot of description or information given about this topic, and it was slightly confusing to understand, That’s why I would like to learn more about Pragnanz.
7) If the whole of an experience is greater than the sum of its individual parts, then why do we study these individual parts? If we did not know the individual parts, would we be able to understand the whole? If the researchers that had the biggest influence on Gestalt psychology would not have come to the United States, would we even have this way of thinking?
8) Terminology: Zeigarnik effect, memory, developmental psychology, social psychology, action research, differentiation, field theory, Gestalt psychology, Lewin, Kohler, Wertheimer, Von Restorff, Duncker, Koffka, Pragnanz.
1a) The topic that I found most interesting were gestalt organizing principles, these principles were first made into light by Max Wertheimer. To some this could be the logic behind optical illusions, magic. If we look back to ancient times, people believed in magic, that if you had a mental illness you were possessed by the devil. It shows that this idea of ‘magic’ is disappearing, that science is moving forward and is changing and shaping the world.
1b) I really enjoyed the principles that came up, for example figure ground segregation. This is one of our most basic perceptual tendencies, that we tend to separate whole figures form their backgrounds. There is also the basic idea of proximity, the book shows a table with dots in a grid all the same shape and size but the lines are not straight. This principle of proximity challenges people to separate them. But because of their similarity we compelled to see it differently. The third principle that I thought was interesting was good continuation. This principle is the tendency to organize our own perceptions in smooth direction. Now gestalist, would say that all these organizing principles have in common pragnatz. Which in turn means that our perceptions tend to mirror reality.
2a) I really found Max Wertheimer interesting, he started the movement for gestalt psychology, all because he was fascinated by the problem of apparent motion. Which at the time was the new basis for motion picture, it was this perception that two flashing lights at the same time with the right speed would become one. Because he wanted to further understand this phenomenon he set up a lab with help from Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler. Together they published a paper, “Experimental Studies on the Perception of Movement”
2b) The reason why I find it interesting, is because it gives great background information to gestalt psychology, it seems to be a running them, that someone somewhere was ‘skeptical’ of this idea or notion and wanted to prove or disprove. Which is exactly what we do with psychology today, to reject or fail to reject the null hypothesis. It also gave some insight to how the basis of motion picture started.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I would say the overall theme of this chapter mostly focused on Gestalt psychology, and how it came about and what contributions it made.
3b) I really enjoyed this chapter, it went over things that were kind of difficult at the time for people to understand. Optical illusions were things of magic and but this chapter discusses about science and psychology is no longer based out of theories, that it is about research and understanding the human mind.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
This chapter shows the push to better understanding of the mind, nothing is soley ‘magic’ that there is a scientific reasoning behind it. It shows how far psychology has come, and in what was it is still related to today.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
As I mentioned earlier, about how individual were skeptical of a theory, and how they wanted to prove or disprove its authenticity. It is one of the major running themes that we have encountered. That one individual may have started a movement and put forth this new idea or concept and others take that idea and run with it. This kind of practices are still used today. To have unbiased research to conduct experiments in a scientific way that has high reliability and validity. Also I have taken cognitive psychology, and we learned about some of these ideas, and even in todays standards its hard to wrap your brain around. One of the things we talked about was ‘how do you know what a table is”, what are its traits, how do you perceive it?
6a) I would not mind learning more about how movies started and how they have changed throughout history.
6b) The reason being, is that it is just a little side tidbit to make it more stimulating, to give the readers somewhat of a better understanding. In today's world, we have all these great things, and all this technology. But no one seems to question how it got this way, we tend to take for granted what we have. Not a lot of people may know the history behind movies, or who invented them.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
What finding have we found today, why is it that we all perceive color slightly different? When will we have a device that will allow us to see things as other do?
8) Terminology: gestalt organizing principles, figure-ground segregation, proximity, similarity, good continuation, Pragnanz, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, gestalt psychology, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler
1) I found the topic of action research interesting because Kurt Lewin’s argument about psychology’s purpose is so important. Lewin stated that psychology must “be equally concerned with discovering how people can change their ways so that they learn to behave better.” This takes psychology to another level (for its time). It took research from just producing results to applying the results and using the results to change ways of people. Without changing, it is almost pointless to do the research. Yes, mentally we understand what’s going on, but that’s all it contributes to. It’s the change that makes the difference. He wanted to change society, and society needed changing.
2) I found Kurt Lewin to be most interesting because practically gave birth to two of my favorite fields of psychology: developmental psychology and social psychology. Lewin considered development as a process of increased differentiation. He discovered that life space becomes more complex over time. For his time, this was a big contribution. Children were studied, but not from the light of development.
3) I think the overall message of this chapter was to explain an emerging type of psychological thinking. This new way of thinking was called gestalt psychology. The gestalts went against the popular idea of dissection the mind. They said that, in order to understand mind and behavior, you must focus on whole experiences and how they are perceived. The work of the psychologists in this chapter brought a new way of thinking and a new way of problem-solving to America.
4) I think understand the way gestalt psychology influenced the world is the most important thing to take from this chapter. Gestalt psychology and it’s contributors had many contributions to the field of psychology and the understanding of humans. It contributed to the way we think about perception, cognition, and learning. It started using research on apes, which are similar and easy to compare to humans. It brought about the fields of developmental and social psychology.
5) This chapter builds on the way of thinking we learned about in the other chapters before this one. It shows an opposing way of thinking and how it did and didn’t thrive in our world. It also built upon the things I learned in other psychology classes. I have taken both introductory psychology and developmental psychology, so this chapter built on the information I learned from those classes. I now know the origins of developmental psychology.
6) I would like to learn more about Kurt Lewin because of my interest in developmental psychology. I think Lewin was very smart with his idea of action research. His push for change in the world through the use of psychology is huge! I want to know more about this.
7) I was wondering more about Lewin. I wanted to know about his research in developmental psychology and differentiation. I also questioned why I hadn’t heard of Lewin. His contributions, in my opinion, are large; however, I have never heard of him. Did his legacy, so to speak, not live on? What he criticized and unliked?
8) action research, Kurt Lewin, developmental psychology, social psychology, differentiation, life space, gestalt psychology, perception
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
-I found the topic of Kurt Lewin and his field theory interesting.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
-I chose this topic since I found mainly his field theory interesting since I find behaviorism one of the more fascinating topics of psychology. His field theory is the belief that understanding a person’s behavior required knowing about all the forces acting on a person at a given moment. The particular field in which the person operates is life space. I think that his formula of B=f(P,E) was always interesting in my other psychology classes since it helps explain that all behavior is a joint function of the characteristics of the person behaving and the features of the psychological environment in which the person is behaving. He borrowed the symbolism of life space from topology which is the nonquantitative spatial geometry. I think it is interesting that he represented life spaces with various ovals that contained symbols of features that influenced the person. Life space includes everything within an oval (the person and the environment). Outside of the oval was the foreign hull which are all the events, circumstances, and stimuli that had no effect on a person at a specific moment. Lewin believes that people were complex energy systems in which the actions of the person can be predicted with reference to tension in the system. In which the consequence of the predominant needs being felt, the strengths of those needs, and the various obstacles in the life space. When all these needs are met, then the person is in a state of equilibrium. I think this whole theory is very interesting and never have really thought too much about it before until now. I also liked learning more about how valence is a desired object, and vector is what pushes one to act to get their desires.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
-I found Kurt Lewin the most interesting in this chapter.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
-He was interesting to me since he has done so much from field theory, approach-approach, avoidance-approach, approach-avoidance, the Zeigarnik effect, and differentiation. He was a developmental psychologist, expanded on Gestalt’s vision and behaviorism, he also was a social psychologist and did action research. This is unbelievable to me that he was able to accomplish and research so much! Most just are famous for one thing, and mainly only focused on a certain topic, but he went above and beyond in his contributions to psychology.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
-I think that the overall message fulfilled the objectives of the chapter and it mainly focused on Kurt Lewin and all the people who contributed to Gestalt psychology.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
-To be honest not really. I was only interested in reading about Lewin, but that was about it. I have learned about Gestalt psychology prior to this class, and this was one of the more boring topics of psychology. Most of the reading was quite a bore, and not many of the research was that interesting to me personally. I like more of the not so ethical experiments in psychology.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
-I think that the people and their main contributions help to understand modern psychology since there always has to be a starting point to improve on. These people have helped expand on Gestalt’s vision, but first there had to be that vision, and then the people to improve it, so that today we can improve on it, so then others after us can perfect it even further.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
-I have learned about Gestalt psych a lot in my other classes. I remember Lewin’s formula of behavior and the person and their environment from Behavior Modification. I remember too from Social Psych class of Kohler and his insight on apes, and remember problem-solving experiment of the ape.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
-I would like to learn more about principles of perceptual organization.
6b) Why?
-I think that is was interesting to look at the different figures in the text and how I could finish the picture when it was incomplete. I also would like to read a bit more about proximity, similarity, and the last principle good continuation. I also thought that pragnanz was unique and the phenomenon of closure. I would want to know more about these concepts since they fascinate me as to how one came to conclude this.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
-Why was Lewin so interested in spending so much time doing a variety of research? How did Lewin have all this time to do all his research and stick to it?
8) Lewin, Gestalt, field theory, life space, topology, foreign hull, equilibrium, valence, vector, approach-approach, avoidance-approach, approach-avoidance, differentiation, proximity, similarity, good continuation, pragnanz, and closure.
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the topic of field theory interesting
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I thought it was interesting to me because it was a theory I had never heard of. I also thought it was interesting because the theory sound like it would work. Kurt Lewin was the man who came up with the theory. He thought that each person operated in what he called a life space. He came up with the equation B=f(P,E) to represent the concept. He believed that every person wanted to be in equilibrium in their life space. He believed that when a challenge was present the good part would have a positive valence and the obstacles would have a negative valance value. He would then look at the diagram that he had for the situation and he could see how people were likely to act in the situation. He came up with the terms approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, and approach-avoidance to describe some situations in his theory.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Max Wertheimer to be interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He was interesting to me because of his experiment with apparent motion. He did a study where he had three different lights move on and off at different times to prove the old theories wrong. He found that people found the two outside lights to move to the middle at the same time. The old theories thought the people’s eyes followed the light. He proved that people’s eyes couldn’t follow light in opposite directions.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I thought the overall message of the chapter was interesting.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I thought it was interesting because of the concept of gestalt psychology. I thought it was interesting people were challenging the functionalist views. They thought you couldn’t break some processes down into smaller parts. I thought it was interesting to learn how they conducted experiments and what results that they obtained from them.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think learning where gestalt psychology started will help in understanding how psychology has evolved into what it is today. Today there are many different types of psychology and you can see influences of past psychology’s on the psychology we use today.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter builds on what I have already learned by going more in-depth on the topic. I learned more people who were apart of the movement. I also learned about some of their experiments that they performed.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about the field theory.
6b) Why?
I thought the theory was interesting. I want to know what mead it not relevant. Who was the person who proved the theory to be wrong.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
While reading the part on field theory I found myself applying that theory to my own life. I was thinking of some situations and coming up with what would be my goal and what were my obstacles. I thought it was cool to apply that theory to my own life.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Field theory, Kurt Lewin, life space, B=f(P,E), equilibrium, valance, vector, approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, approach avoidance, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, gestalt psychology.
1a) The topic from this chapter I found interesting was the gestalt approach to cognition and learning.
b) I found this topic interesting because I liked how Kohler used the apes as a resource to explain the human brain and thinking. I liked how there wasn’t one particular person that was involved with finding information about cognition and learning. Instead it was spread out among different researchers and psychologists like Hedwig von Restorff and Max Wertheimer.
2a) I found Kurt Lewin interesting to learn about from this chapter
b) The reason I found him interesting to learn about is because of all of the contributions to psychology he had within developmental psychology and social psychology, the field theory, and the help with the Zeigarnik effect. I think it was cool how he was able to contribute all of these things to how we see psychology now.
3a) I believe the overall message from this chapter was to explain to the readers about how the old psychology turned into the way we see it now. I think that Gestalt psychology helped individuals see things and ideas through new perspectives and that’s what the chapter wanted to tell us.
b) I did find this chapter interesting because it helped me learn more information about the differences from the old and new psychology, as well as the level of importance of these changes had on modern psychology.
4) From this chapter I believe learning about the mental and cognitive contributions to psychology will help me understand the history better. I believe this is the case because in my opinion the development of information of cognitive abilities helps me understand why we make changes. It also helps me realize that all of the past information and thoughts about the brain and cognitive abilities were right at that time and should not be scrutinized for it.
5)This builds off of what I already have learned in other classes by learning about Gestalt psychology. Before reading this chapter I knew that Gestalt psychology was important because I have learned about it before. However, this chapter helped me learn more about it and answer some questions I had over the topic; even though not all.
6a) The topic I would like to learn more about from this chapter is the Zeigarnik effect from Lewin
6b) The reason I would like to learn more about this effect is because from the reading it says that Zeigarnik was a student of Lewin and did a major study on memory. However, I want to learn more about what the effect actually entails, how Zeigarnik came to research that idea about different tasks relating to memory.
7) Something that kept coming to mind when I was reading this chapter was about Gestalt psychology. I know that gestalt psychology is supposedly different than normal psychology but I don’t see a major difference in which it can be categorized as something different. I see the minor differences but that is just weird to me.
8) Terms: Kurt Lewin, developmental psychology, social psychology, the field theory, Zeigarnik effect, Hedwig von Restorff, Max Wertheimer, Kohler
Please read chapter 9. After reading the chapter, please respond to the following questions:
(Note: to help with organization points please keep the numbering)
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
Gestalt Approach to Cognition and Learning
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found it interesting to find that they used apes to study. I have heard how much apes are like humans so it does make sense to use them for test subjects. I found it unique that they didn’t use rats or other small animals like most subjects tend to be.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
Kurt Lewin
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I think that he gets maybe too much credit. He wasn’t the one to find the origin of his research (the Gestalt Vision did so), but I thought it was unique because it states that he used much of that research to in turn further his. Most research doesn’t give credit or acknowledgement like that.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
Gestalt Psychology
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I think that with them using a unique approach made it interesting. They did not use the typical study trends in my opinion which kept me interested to read it. I think that reading about history is rather boring, but when it has a unique twist it catches interest.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think field theory was the most important. It takes in how we have to look at our environment to fully understand how something either becomes applicable or is able to understand why something is the way it is.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
I think that it just furthers our understanding of how we are where we are today. It taught us how we got to where we are today and gives us something to go off of to not make mistakes or backtrack again.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about field theory.
6b) Why?
I’m a firm believer that when people are in different sorts of environments it rubs off on them slightly. It lets them change themselves slightly. I think that learning why people do that is something worthwhile and applicable in today’s world still.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
When Lewin expanded on the Gestalt Vision, did he have to get permission to use the ideas or could he just go on with his research?
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
• Gestalt Approach to Cognition and Learning
• Kurt Lewin
• Gestalt Vision
• Gestalt Psychology
• field theory
1a) one topic that I found to be interesting was the concept of act psychology.
1b) I find this concept to be interesting due to the specifications of it. with this concept Brento argued that the important thing about studying the mind was not to examine its contents or even to understand the underlying physiology but to understand how the mind operates to create our experiences. for example the important thing when studying perception wouldn't be to get detailed sensations images or effects but the important thing is the act of perceiving the event, how the individual perceives event and what the event means to the individual.
2a)the person that I found interesting was Max Wertheimer.
2b) I found him to be interesting for a few different reasons. first of all his education. he moved around a lot when it came to that. he originally studied law but then moved to the field of philosophy. he took classes with Von Ehrenfels, studied in berlin for three semesters where he encountered Stumpf, and then went to Wurzburg where he completed his doctorate with Oswald Kulpe. then for the next several years he studied informally and multiple Eastern European universities. second I found some of the concepts that he was interested in and studied to be interesting. first of which was the concept of apparent motion. this concept was well known at the time and was a reason the motion picture industry was created. it was the concept that for example that if you were in a darkened room and two adjacent bulbs are flashed on and off in sequence fast enough that the perception is not of two lights being turned on and off but a single light that moves side to side. due to this two sensory events occur even in the flash between the lights it is perceived that the lights are perceived to be moving even though there is no sensory basis for this perception. in research Wertheimer and colleagues demonstrated this under a variety of conditions and raised serious questions about previous explanations. in one experiment three lights were used and flashed In different directions so it was ruled out that the eyes simply moved because they cannot move in two directions at the same time. so that explanation was rejected due to the fact that movement perception occurred to quickly. he then argued that the phenomenon must stand on its own as an immediate phenomenological experience that does not require analysis into parts. this was because perception occurred in areas devoid of any sensory information. analysis into sensory elements could not possibly explain the phenomenon. he referred to perceived motion as the Phi Phenomenon.
3a)this whole chapter focuses on cognition and sensory stimuli or perception.
3b) I find it interesting because in previous chapters it makes it seem as though anything can be broken down when it comes to the senses so that it can be understood step by step what is happening and why it happens. in this chapter I found out that some things are not that easy and can not be explained. I find it interesting that the message of how things works has changed a little.
4) I learned in this chapter that sometimes the question of why or how cant be answered. some things cant be broken down to a process to be better understood. those things just happen and we have to accept what is happening and realize that it is what it is.
5)this chapter builds on what I have learned about the senses and cognition in other classes. in other classes like the first part of this book things were always broken down and seemed to have a way to answer how or why things happened the way that they did. instead in this chapter it gives me the idea that not al things can be understood in a basic manner like that. some questions just cant be answered.
6a)the topic that I would like to learn more about is dedifferentiation.
6b) I want to learn more about this because of the way in which it is brought up. with the experiment children are used. I also know that the fact of age is brought up but this concept makes me wonder if the same things would occur in different settings with different groups of different ages of people or if this concept is just stuck to that certain type of setting or situation.
7)some of the questions I had while reading this chapter especially with Wertheimer was are psychologist or anyone in the field okay with doing all the research only to find that they really cant answer the question that they set out to? also with some of the experiments in the chapter I wonder If the same results would occur with different age groups In different settings or cultures.
8)Max Wertheimer
act psychology
Phi Phenomenon
Von Ehrenfels
Stumpf
Oswald Kulpe
dedifferentiation
1) I thought that the principles of perceptual organization were interesting because it was something I had heard about before but didn’t really know much about. It was cool to learn more about how we perceive things. Figure ground segregation was especially interesting to me. This means that we can distinguish figures from their backgrounds because they have distinct features. The figure has a distinct border but the ground extends behind the figure. An example of this is the picture of the vase that is also a profile of two faces. The white vase is the figure while the black background is the ground. We can see both, but only one at a time.
2) I thought that Kurt Lewin was interesting because he contributed so much to empirical research. The book says that he contributed more than the three big gestalt psychology founders combined. He believed that understanding human behavior meant that you also needed to know about all of the forces acting on a person at that moment. In other words, he thought that both environment and beliefs of the person mattered. This included things such as personality, needs, goals, beliefs, and anything outside of the person that directly affects them. He used this theory to study conflicts between people, which may have been his best known contribution to psychology.
3) I thought that the overall message of the chapter was showing us how gestalt psychology started and how it grew and spread over the years. It also somewhat shows how this all effects modern day psychology. I found it interesting because there was a lot of interesting research talked about in this chapter. I especially enjoyed the sections about perception.
4) I think it’s always useful to learn about the different types of psychology. There are so many of them, and they all had important contributions to how we study psychology today.
5) I had heard of gestalt psychology before but didn’t know anything about it. It was interesting to figure out what it really meant and all of the research behind it. I also didn’t know about a lot of the research and theories that were talked about in the chapter, except for some of the research on perception.
6) I would like to learn more about Max Wertheimer. The book makes it seem like he was an important person in gestalt psychology, but they only had a small section about him.
7) I was mostly wondering why I hadn’t heard about a lot of these people and research before reading the chapter. I’ve taken quite a few psychology courses and the information in this chapter seems important, so it seems like I should have at least heard about it before.
8) principles of perceptual organization, perception, figure ground segregation, Kurt Lewin, gestalt psychology, human behavior, environment, conflict, Max Wertheimer
1a) What topic did you find interesting? 1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found the topic of apparent motion interesting because it is something that in our current time we come across often, possibly on a daily basis. We can see this on any billboard or sign that uses that system to display messages, such as gas stations or fast food businesses. However we never really question why the words moving across a screen make total sense to us, since they aren’t actually moving but are a series of flashing lights to create that illusion. I just find it interesting when there is a psychological phenomenon right in front of us on a daily basis but we don’t perceive it as such.
2a) What person did you find interesting? 2b) Why were they interesting to you?
Max Wertheimer was interesting to me because he studied apparent motion. He acquired lab space and equipment to develop his ideas about apparent motion into a research project. He was aided by two young psychologists, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler. Wertheimer argued that the phenomenon must stand on its own as a valid example of an immediately given phenomenological experience that does not require analysis into constituent parts. Perception occurred in areas devoid of any sensory information therefore analysis into sensory elements could not possibly explain the phenomenon. He referred to the perceived motion as phi phenomenon. Wertheimer lectured and continued doing research at Frankfurt until 1916, then went to Berlin where he became a central figure at the Berlin Psychological Institute until 1929 when he then returned to Frankfurt. He probably would have stayed there but at this time Nazi Germany began to gain power and in 1933 Hitler enacted the “Law for Reestablishment of Professional Civil Service,” which was basically put in place to remove Jewish professors from their jobs. Wertheimer, who was Jewish, saw this happening and took his wife and kids and fled to America before it could happen to him. He settled in New York and joined a number of other German refugee-scientists at the recently created New School for Social Research.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter? 3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not? I think the overall message shows that they will always be new discoveries and new ways of thinking and understanding certain concepts. It was interesting to me to learn about different perceptual processes.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology? I think understanding when and how these discoveries were made helps me understand the line of thinking and what was occurring when they were researching these topics.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes? In this chapter there were people who wanted to disprove certain theories that came before them and the text informed us of how they took a different approach to do that, which is building on what we previously learned about that topic.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 6b) Why?
I think the development of the motion picture and movies is very interesting because that is something we all take for granted and experience every single day.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter? Overall I was just thinking about how all of these concepts applied to me personally and how much I was aware of on a daily basis and how much I never gave much thought to before.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
apparent motion
Max Wertheimer
Kurt Koffka
Wolfgang Kohler
Perception
phi phenomenon
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found apparent motion or the phi phenomenon, a very interesting topic in this week's reading.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Apparent motion was interesting to me because something so rudimentary to psychology and such a small question is believed to be the founding experiment of Gestalt psychology. I also think it is interesting that this later became known as the phi phenomenon because apparent motion implied, in Wertheimer's eyes, that the motion was not actually perceived.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Franz Brentano and his book Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint to be very interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
This is interesting to me because it is a philosophical approach to psychology. He uses the term, “empirical” as gaining knowledge through experiences and reflections on those experiences. What I really found interesting was how he says that when studying the mind, it's more important to understand how the mind works to create our experiences than the physiology of the brain. This approach focuses on an individual's perception and what it means to them. This is more appealing to me because I like to think every person has their own “world.” By this I mean that our perception shapes our world and I agree it is more important to focus on an individual and their differences from other people rather than how every person's mind is similar.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I think the overall message of the chapter is based on perception and the individual. It is very insightful for some of the different views Gestalt Psychology brings to the table.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I found this chapter very interesting because much of the content is in line with my own thinking. For example, Wertheimer and his view on productive thinking. He challenged traditional teaching of geometry which was just memorization of formulas and said that insight and taking an idea and building off of it is much more important to actually learning.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that one of the biggest takeaways from this chapter is that you should challenge traditional thinking. Just because one person has an idea or theory, doesn't mean that it's right or that you have to believe it. Every person sees their own brain's interpretation of the world and perceive things differently. So, challenge the norm, don't conform and don't be a sheep.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter really brought out the ideas I believe Professor Maclin has been trying to teach us in History & Systems of Psychology. He talks about productive thinking, asking the important questions and why they are relevant. The Gestalt Research on cognition and Productive Thinking really express the ideas bestowed upon us in this class.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Gestalt Psychology as a whole.
6b) Why?
Similarly to my Psychology of Personality class when we talked about the Humanistic approach to Psychology and I saw that this aligned very much with my own ideas in psychology. This chapter did much of the same for me. For me, I think it is easier to read about something I believe and comparing my beliefs to those said than reading someone's ideas such as Sigmund Freud's. Although interesting and ground-breaking and very important to the field of and history of psychology, it's just easier to connect with something you are already passionate about.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I didn't have any questions really but something that I found interesting was how the whole Gestalt movement sparked from one small question of why two independent-alternating-flashing lights, side-by-side appear to be one continuous light moving from side to side. This made people ask more questions and have more ideas and had a tremendous snowball effect building into it's own field of psychology.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Terms: Apparent Motion, Phi Phenomenon, Gestalt Psychology, Max Wertheimer, Franz Brentano, empirical, productive thinking, insight, Psychology of Personality, perception.
1a) A topic I found interesting was Kurt Lewin’s leadership styles.
1b) I thought it was interesting because most people would have identified him as a developmental psychologist, however he also became a pioneer for social psychology, and his experiments with the different leadership styles was one of the reasons he is known as it. The experiment was interesting because Lewin put groups of boys through three different types of leaderships. Each boy experienced all three leadership styles, and all of the boys tended to act similar. In the authoritative style, where the adult told the boys what to do and didn’t accept any input, the boys acted out once the adult left the room and did not produce quality material. In the laissez-faire style, where the adult gave the boys no input and they had to figure it out on their own, the boys spent too much time figuring out what needed to be done, and not enough time doing it. In the democratic style the boys worked together and were motivated to produce high-quality products.
2a) I thought that Max Wertheimer was interesting.
2b) He decided that apparent motion was interesting and then studied it with Fredrich Schumann. He coined the term ‘phi phenomenon’ because the didn’t like the implication that the motion was not real. Wertheimer believed that we perceived the whole situation, not the smaller elements. He worked at Frankfurt until Hitler came to power and he fed to the United States with his family.
3a) I think the overall message of this chapter was to show the people who began to think about our perception and how people think about things.
3b) It was interesting to me, because some people think of psychology as ways people perceive objects and how they learn. I thought that it was interesting to see how this chapter fit into our lives today, with the pictures of ‘faces.’ I thought it was interesting to be able to put a name to what those pictures were testing.
4) I think that this chapter was important to understand the history of psychology because it makes us ask questions about why someone is perceiving something the way they are. It teaches us that there are different ways to look at something and that there are more than one right answer.
5) This chapter related to other classes by talking about Kurt Lewin and his leadership styles. I had learned about them in other classes, and I was able to connect that knowledge to this class. This chapter also built upon Kurt Lewin by expanding on him more than his leadership styles.
6a) I would like to learn more about the principles of perceptual organization.
6b) I thought that these principles were interesting because they were illustrated with pictures that we see every day. Most of the time we look at these pictures and look away, but I would like to learn more about why we see what we see.
7) Has there been more research on the phi phenomenon? Have we found that we can see portions of a whole? How large or complex does something have to be before we can start to see the elements that make it whole?
8) Kurt Lewin, leadership styles, authoritarian, laissez-faire, democratic, Max Wertheimer, apparent motion, Fredrich Schumann, phi phenomenon, principles of perceptual organization.
1. The first thing that I found interesting in this chapter about gestalt psychology was Max Wertheimer and his ideas of apparent motion. Apparent motion was well known at the time, but still people could not wrap their heads around it, and this is what I found intriguing. Wertheimer experimented with flashing lights. It all had to do with how we used our eyes and how the lights were exactly flashing. One fact that enticed me is that Wertheimer contributed a lot to gestalt psychology in terms of perception of movement, hence flashing lights and apparent motion. He didn't like the term “apparent”, because this basically claimed it wasn't fully true, so he changed the term to “phi phenomenon.” I also found it interesting in his research that he found that we perceive things wholly, that we do not piece smaller elements together to make them whole. The way we perceive things and how we learn things are different, and this surprised me because I personally learn sometimes by piecing things together, but this is different then perceiving things.
The second thing that interested me in this chapter was that people thought that Wolfgang Kohler, one of the founders of gestalt psychology was a spy and that he was committing espionage when he was supposedly working with apes in Tenerife. I just thought that this was a little ridiculous and far fetched to believe that he was a spy. Maybe it is true, but it is still an interesting thought. His study of apes and how they problem solved was also interesting to learn about. He found that they do find problems to solutions, but it takes longer for them than humans.
Lastly, the thing I found intriguing in this chapter was the fact that a major contributor to psychology in a wide range, Kurt Lewin did some of his work in Iowa. Not only did he contribute to developmental and social psychology, he also performed “action research.” I think this concept is very important because although he was researching and finding results, people still had to know. He had to put his work into action, and I think this is what really highlighted him as a psychologist. After reading this chapter it was noted from those who worked along side of him could not keep up, that he didn't know when to stop. This was amusing to me, and made me think that he really did love his work and wanted to make progress.
2. The topic that was least interesting to me in this chapter was Wertheimer and his ideas of productive thinking. First of all the idea of the parallelogram and finding it's area was very confusing to me and I did not comprehend it at all. I understood the basic formula for finding the area, but when Wertheimer presented a different way to do this to the school children, I was lost completely.
3. There was a lot of useful and important information in this chapter. Gestalt psychology is a very important form of psychology, although not the most popular, it is important to know in order to understand other kinds of psychology I believe. Lewin did all kinds of different work, and I think his studies are what will help me understand the history of psychology. He worked very hard to contribute to the field of psychology.
4. History is obviously a very important aspect of all of the chapters we have read so far. While we keep reading on, we build on what we have already learned to what we are currently learning. The more we learn the more we can associate, and I think it is easier and a good way of learning to associate things. And when we associate, we can then apply the information we have obtained to real life which also helps us understand.
5. I would love to learn more about Kohler and why he was thought of as a spy. This mystery is very interesting to me because no one really knows the truth. Was he really doing his research with apes, or did he have a different agenda?
6. I was so surprised that Kohler was thought to be a German spy. This seemed ridiculous to me, but in the back of my mind I wondered if it could be true. We may never know.
7. Gestalt Psychology, Max Wertheimer, Apparent Motion, Wolfgang Kohler, Productive Thinking, Kurt Lewin, Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Action Research
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found that topic of figure-ground or in general the perception aspect.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I found this interesting for two main reasons, first because perception was one of the main theories that gestalt was organized around by Wertheimer. Also I found it interesting because in the text not only does it tell the reader about the theory but also show pictures that represent examples. He claims that Objects seem to give us the perception that the background is a part of it or that the space behind it seems to belong. Next also the “face vase” picture that is famous (I learned about this in my intro to psychology class) where you cannot perceive both a vase and the faces in the image at the same time.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
To me Kohler was extremely interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
He was interesting to me not only because he became the face of Gestalt Psychology but also because some of his career was mysterious. When going to the Canary islands to do research on Apes there were rumors that he was actually a spy and this was part of his cover up, although in the end he managed to produce research that changed the way that people understood the mental capacity of apes. I also found him interesting because he stood up for academics and education. Kohler’s work in Germany took place during the Nazis reign, in the text it establishes that the Nazi rule impacted academia and Kohler was against that. Though this may not seem significant to me it seems that this is important to the history of psychology, through Kohler we can learn that part of being a psychologist might mean standing up for academia even in hard circumstances.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
Overall I think the message of the chapter was that not one person was able to start the idea of Gestalt psychology, and that even within the Gestalt field there are many things that make it up; such as perception, environment, learning, problem solving. Further I think the message was that psychology is always building on itself (innovation coming from others works and ideas) this comes from the example of Lewin and how he not only was considered a Gestalt psychologist but then built on it and grew it into other fields that we have today.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I personally really liked this chapter because I find perception and learned two of the most interesting things in psychology, also I feel as though I learned a lot about how psychology has developed. I also didn’t know that Gestalt psychology existed at a time there for any time I learn more I tend to find the chapter interesting.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most useful to understanding the history of psychology would probably be Lewins developments from Gestalt psychology. He did works in both developmental psychology and even himself thought he was a social psychologist due to his interesting in self-identity. He also did research in both of these fields. I think this is important to understand because it allows for us to see how psychology is related and allows for freedom in what you study being applicable to many fields in psychology not just one.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter was a lot of newer information for me but talked about topics that I have learned about a lot in other courses. I have heard about the face-vase example in the perception example. I also have heard of developmental and social psychology and through this chapter got to read more experiments or research mostly done by Lewin.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about Lewin’s action research
6b) Why?
I would like to learn more about his action research for many reasons, the first being before this chapter I had never heard of action research before. I would like to learn a little more about it. I also was very intrigued by the idea of leadership research and him applying that for organizational and industrial psychology.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
The question’s I had in this chapter were mostly answered by the time I finished the reading, although an idea did occur to me about fields in psychology intersecting more and more would help for more innovation in Psychology in general.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post
Developmental psychology, Social Psychology, Self-identity, Gestalt Psychology, Perception,
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The topic of Gestalt psychology was completely new to me. Gestalt psychology is known by the phrase, “the whole of an experience is greater than the sum of its individual parts”.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
It proved to be very interesting because the idea of becoming aware of our ability to acquire meaningful perceptions, in and of itself, is an amazing thing.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Kurt Lewin to be very interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I found Lewin’s work in the areas of developmental and social psychology to be very applicable. I admire his belief that his work should contribute to the improvement of our society. He was one of the few psychologists who emigrated from Germany in the time of war. It was neat to read that he had spent some of his time in Iowa!
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
The overall message of chapter nine was to become familiar with what Gestalt psychology entails and the people who played important roles in its discovery. Even though Kant, Husserl, and Mach did not realize it at the time, they got the ball rolling in the area of Gestalt psychology. The torch was then carried by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler. Lewin also played a big part in Gestalt psychology as he put his focus in developmental and social psychology.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
Overall, this chapter was interesting to read mainly because this area of psychology was completely new to me. I felt like I could apply a lot of what I was reading to my life because I’ve always been intrigued by the how our perceptions are created.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think the most important take away message from this chapter is that it is okay and novel to challenge traditional thinking. I also think it is important to understand due to several German psychologists immigrating to the United States, we were able to see psychology evolve as a whole here in the United States. There is always a time and place for everything. Somethings just happen to be in the wrong place or at the wrong time, or both.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
Personally, this chapter really helped continue my understanding of psychology by introducing me to a new area of psychology I had not previously been introduced to, Gestalt psychology. I have not taken a perceptions or sensation psychology class but I imagine that class might have taught about Gestalt psychology.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about the principles of perceptual organization.
6b) Why?
The brief paragraphs I read in the textbook were very interesting. This area also has a slight creative art aspect which also further interested me. Proximity, similarity, and good continuation are three organizing principles which are present in many illustrations. The phenomena of the Law of Pragnanz occurs when we tend to mirror reality as closely as possible. Closure occurs when an ambiguous illustration is unclear as a whole but we tend to fill in the blanks creating what the illustration is with our minds. All of these examples are extremely interesting to me.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
After reading this chapter, it made me wonder why I had not read or learned about Gestalt psychology in any of my other psychology courses. It was interesting and very applicable to my life.
8) Terminology: Gestalt Psychology, Kurt Lewin, developmental psychology, social psychology, Kant, Husserl, Mach, Wertheimer, Koffka, Kohler, Principles of Perceptual Organization, proximity, similarity, good continuation, Law of Pragnanz, closure.
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1a) The topic that I found interesting was gestalt psychology.
1b) The reason that I found this interesting, was because it took a different approach to psychology than what has previously been discussed. Rather than looking at individual parts of something, gestaltists look at experiences as a whole. So, this different approach was new and interesting.
2a) The person that I found interesting was Kurt Lewin.
2b) Lewin was interesting to me because of his action research. A lot of the social psychology experiments he did were interesting to read about, and I liked how they related to society, and could make society better by looking at the results of his experiments.
3a) I think the overall message of this chapter was to introduce a different way to look at psychology, and that was through a gestaltist view. It talked a lot about the contributions gestaltists made to psychology, and how looking at experiences as a whole can be better than looking at the individual things that make up the experience.
3b) I would say yes, it was interesting to me. I thought it was interesting to look at psychology from a gestaltist viewpoint. Before this chapter, I had never even heard of gestalt psychology, so it is always interesting to learn something new about the field of psychology.
4) The thing from this chapter that will help me to better understand why we study history, is how Lewin derived social psychology from gestalt psychology. Knowing about why we do what we do in society is very important. A lot of people are willing to do whatever an authority figure tells them to do, rather than think and stand up for themselves, and that can be very dangerous for a society. From experiments like the ones that are done in social psychology, we can learn things that can help us better our society, and make it the best and safest living for us humans as possible.
5) This chapter builds on what I have already learned in this class by looking at experiences as a whole rather than individually. Previously, we have always looked at experiments in psychology by the components that make them up, but in this chapter, we look at the experiment as a whole, and find that it can tell us just as much.
6a) The topic that I would like to learn more about is social psychology.
6b) The reason i would like to learn more about social psychology is because in the chapter it said that Lewin was the founder of it, and I liked reading about the research and the experiments he did. So, learning more about the psychology of our society would be interesting, and could help us understand why we do what we do, and also help us to make improvements to our society.
7) One question that I had about the chapter was that I was wondering if gestalt psychology was something that people still research in today? Is there grad programs in gestalt psychology, or has gestalt psychology become something else more commonly known in today's society, such as social psychology, maybe?
8) Gestalt psychology, gestaltists, action research, Kurt Lewin, Social Psychology
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The field theory developed by Kurt Lewin was interesting to read because although I have often considered both the person and the environment when looking at behavior, I have never seen it demonstrated in a Lewin-like drawing. I think it was important at the time for Lewin to bring this idea to light even though he was not strictly a gestaltist because many people at the time were focused more on environment and maybe genetics but failed to consider a person’s motivations or desires or personality as part of the whole behavior. I especially liked Lewin’s expression of motivation as a vector which can indicate both direction and magnitude, the push towards one goal and the strength of that push. I thought it was also very realistic to talk not just about the positive valence items but also those with negative valence, the barriers which get in the way and prevent someone from getting back to equilibrium. It made me wonder how often we actually are in equilibrium though as it seems that we always have wants and/or needs which need to be fulfilled which Lewin would say creates tension and prevents equilibrium. However, I can see that our motivations to satisfy these desires reflects the ultimate goal of reobtaining equilibrium or at least getting closer to it. I was also excited to finally put a name with the terms I have heard before regarding conflict (two vectors competing with each other) and to explore the applications of these terms to real life with examples of say an approach-approach or approach-avoidance conflict which each one of us has most definitely faced in our daily lives. Finally, I was fascinated by the experiment which eventually yielded the Zeigarnik effect as it explains to me why tension still exists if we are interrupted in a task. We continue to go back to that task in our minds and even feel a sense of urgency in returning to it just so we can get that sense of fulfillment and ease when the task is completed. So, it would make sense that we would remember these interrupted tasks better as we automatically want to return to them at a later point whether or not that is actually possible.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I liked reading about Wolfgang Köhler in this section.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
Köhler intrigued me for several reasons. First, was of course his study of apes and ensuing knowledge of a process he termed insight. Given that apes are similar to humans in many ways, I see them as a good subject for the study of the human mind and the way in which advanced organisms solve problems. Many of us have had that feeling of just suddenly “getting” something. For whatever reason, our mind just recognizes the solution all of a sudden. This was what Köhler saw in the apes when they seemed to have that “lightbulb” moment sticking the two sticks together and realizing that this was the solution they had been looking for to get to the bananas. However, what Köhler failed to mention was the fact that the ape did not simply look at the bananas, look at the sticks, and suddenly come up with the solution. It did take some of the Thorndike-like trial-and-error before the ape arrived at the correct solution. Thus, it appeared to me as if Thorndike’s ideas and the idea of insight might actually go hand in hand. Another interesting fact to me was Köhler’s willingness to stick up for what he thought was right with no worry about the consequences. This came through in his writings against the Hitler regime and the resulting forced resignation of many very bright and capable humans simply because of their heritage. He knew that this could get him arrested and yet he did it anyway. I think this is probably one of the reasons he became such a prominent figure in the world of gestalt psychology. Although the consequences were not nearly as severe, this way of thinking was very different from structuralism or behaviorism and yet he was not afraid to promote it. For this, one simply has to give Köhler credit. Finally, this man intrigued me for the claims that he was in fact a German spy helping the Nazi regime. Given his obvious contempt for them in earlier writings, I would be surprised if this was indeed true, but maybe this was the Nazi’s punishment for his very open criticism. Maybe he made a deal to be a spy instead of being arrested, no one will probably ever know!
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I thought that the author aimed to communicate that new ways of thinking are constantly arising by describing the rise of gestalt psychology in a time when the focus was on parts and not the whole. In my opinion, he did a great job of contrasting the two and explaining the major contributors to this movement.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I thought that the chapter was fairly interesting just because it did switch from the idea of viewing mental phenomena in pieces to a view of psychology through the whole with a greater focus on theory. Thus, we had a sort of change of pace. Also, I found the first strong hints at social psychology in this chapter in terms of Kurt Lewin and what he called action research. It is this type of research, that which can be applied to the bettering of society which particularly interests me.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
In understanding the history of psychology, this chapter helped me because it made me realize the importance of viewing history not just as different parts but as a whole. Thus, it is useful as to remember that when reading. Although it may be easiest for an author to present topics in separate chapters, as “pieces” of the whole history, we must also remind ourselves to occasionally think of them as the whole as without doing that I think that they lose their meaning.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
The concept of gestalt psychology is rather new to me even though I have been exposed to the some of the contributions made by gestaltists in my past psychology classes. Despite this new information, I feel it did build on previous chapters in that it contrasted this new way of thinking with those which we have previously studied such as structuralism.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about the idea of gestalt psychology as it applies to perception.
6b) Why?
I have always enjoyed studying how the human mind perceives different stimuli, however, I have never been able to study perception in depth as it relates to gestalt theories. For example, I would like to see the more useful applications of the figure-ground phenomena outside of the classic face/wine glass illustration. Also, I would like to know if there are any instances in which the law of simplicity, or prägnanz, fails to work or if there are certain individuals prone to going against this “normal” perception of stimuli. Finally, I simply found the topic of behavioral versus geographic environments very fascinating and would love to research it further.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
My biggest questions mainly surrounded the Köhler ape studies. I was interested in why he was so quick to jump to the conclusion that insight was the only factor in solving problems when in fact he knew that his ape tried many different methods before coming up with a solution to get the bananas. Also, I was interested in knowing why no one else seemed to be able to replicate the experiment and why Köhler relied on others’ observations for one of his most known contributions.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Field theory, Kurt Lewin, vector, valence, equilibrium, approach-approach, approach-avoidance, Zeigarnik effect, Wolfgang Köhler, insight, Thorndike, gestalt psychology, structuralism, behaviorism, figure-ground, prägnanz, behavioral/geographic environments
1) One thing that I found interesting in this chapter is the Von Restorff Effect. I found this topic interesting because it can be applied to eyewitness memory which is something that has always interested me. This theory states that anytime a stimulus in an informational array stands out in some fashion, it will be recalled more easily than the remaining information. This concept ties into eyewitness memory in what criminologists call the weapon focus effect. This is when a victim is assaulted by a perpetrator and that person has a weapon, all of the focus of the victim tends to be on the weapon rather than anything else. The weapon in this case is the stimulus that stands out more than anything else and thus is the main thing that is remembered later.
2) One person that I found interesting is Wolfgang Kohler. I found him interesting because of his work with apes and challenging Thorndike’s idea of trial and error learning. Kohler believed that individuals needed to be able to see the whole field of the problem in order to solve it. Kohler disagreed with Thorndike because in Thorndike’s puzzle box, the cat was not able to see the whole field of the problem. Kohler tested this by giving apes two sticks of slightly different diameters in which one could fit inside the other creating one big stick. The two sticks separately were not able to reach the food but by putting them together they were able to reach the food. One of the apes realized after putting the two sticks together that they were able to reach the food and was then able to retrieve the food.
3) I think that the overall message of the chapter was to inform the reader of the growth of Gestalt psychology and the major players in this section of the field. To me this chapter was not very interesting. It dealt with a lot of individuals rather than concepts of psychology. I find just reading about individuals is dry and escapes my attention very easily.
4) In regards to what I feel was the most useful in understanding psychology, like I have said in previous posts, I feel that it is the origins of Gestalt psychology and the individuals who founded it. I think this is the most useful because it is the ground work to which the rest of the work is based upon. The point of this class is to understand why we should study history and one of the reasons we have come up with is to figure out how we got to where we are today. When looking at this we try to go back to the very beginning. So if we understand where the beginning of Gestalt psychology came from and by whom, we will understand the beginning and be able to work forward from there.
5) One way in which this chapter expanded my knowledge of history of psychology is Kohler’s work with learning. In previous chapters I have learned about Thorndike’s work with learning and how he view learning. According to Thorndike, people learn through trial and error and he tested this using his Thorndike puzzle box and a cat. After readin chapter 9, I learned about Kohler who challenged that idea with another one. This was insight which differs from that of Thorndike in that he believed that individuals needed to see the whole field of a problem in order to solve it rather than just trial an error.
6) I would like to learn more about this type of psychology and their work using apes. I think that working ethically with apes to research possible human behavior is very intriguing and meaningful. Apes behavior similar to that of humans and by being able to study their behavior and cognitive abilities we will be able to apply what we have learned to humans and their abilities.
7) How does Gestalt psychology differ from that of functionalism?
8) Terms: Gestalt, Thorndike, Thorndike puzzle box, Wolfgang Kohler, insight, cognitive, Von Restorff Effect, eye witness memory
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the principles of perceptual organization and the figure-ground concept to be the most interesting topic in this chapter.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
I find optical illusions interesting and the figure-ground concept is the basis for optical illusions. I also like the fact that our brain perceives things with proximity, similarity and good continuation because it shows that we group things in our brains. Things that are similar looking, we put into a category which is a possibly a reason we make stereotypes based on clothing. I am also interested in this concept because I never thought about perception broken down into these three parts so it caught my eye.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Kohler interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I thought his work with the apes and insight was cool because we learned a lot about insight and problem solving from his experiments on the apes. Even though his experiment was challenged, he made people look at learning in a different way and when one person can make people perceive something in a different way, I think that is awesome. People don’t like change, but without it, we can’t move forward and his experiments with quick solutions made people do more complex experiments and ultimately advanced the field.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I think the overall message of the chapter was how Gestalt psychology and perception came to be more scientific instead of all theories. I also think it was about how Koffka, Kohler, and Lewin expanded Gestalt psychology in different ways but all still made it what it is today.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I found this to be interesting because I like Gestalt psychology because it is hard to grasp but once you understand the concepts, you see them everywhere. For example, when I used stereotypes as an example for similarity, that is one place that you can apply a perception term to. I also think the fact that Lewin found a way to make perception scientific is awesome because if he didn’t, it might have turned out like structuralism.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think that learning about the ape studies will help me understand history the best because without the faulty study, how long would it have been before people came up with more complex ways to test animals. We can learn a lot about ourselves through apes and other animals but we can figure out puzzle boxes pretty quickly (hopefully). Testing animals with more complex puzzles can make drawing parallels between them and us easier and more valid.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter built on to what I know about the history of psychology because it proves once again, that everything has to start somewhere. Gestalt psychology didn’t just spring up overnight. There was a lot of trial and error on many scientists parts.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
6b) Why?
I would like to learn more about the ape studies and what we learned about people and problem solving and how that applies to us today. I would like to learn more about this because I think this concept applies to the education system and we could possibly help our education system and retention of information rates if we looked into this topic more.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I think it is awesome to realize that we make groups in our minds. If we see how apes problem solve, what does that tell us about the way we perceive problems and learn?
8) Terms: principles of perceptual organization, figure-ground, proximity, similarity and good continuation, Kohler, insight, Gestalt psychology, Lewin.
1a/b. I liked the field theory because it said you have to consider ones situation before you understand ones behavior. I feel like this is interesting to be me because of how relevant it is in everyday life, and I have also been learning about that in another class as well as we've been discussing the different kinds of testing.
2a/b. I thought Gestalt was interesting, and I liked how he challenged Thorndike's research on animals and came to a different conclusion that animals could have insight and solve problems if they could perceive all elements of the situation.
3a/b. I think the main purpose of this chapter was to introduce us to Gestalt and explain his importance in the field. I found this more interesting than most chapters because it wasn't a ton of names with dates, and it more focused on Gestalt and what he did.
4. The most useful thing in this chapter in my opinion, is learning about Gestalt psychology and the influences that he made within the field.
5. This chapter really helped to remind me that it's okay to not agree with someone and try it in your own because sometimes you may be right.
6a/b. NA
7. NA
8. Gestalt, Thorndike
1a) The topic that I found most interesting from this chapter was perceptual organization and more specifically figure-ground segregation.
1b) I have always found "brain puzzles" and sight things to be really interesting and have seen these figure-ground photos before. I think it is so interesting to see how an image can be of one thing but our brain and vision also perceives something else. The book talks about a certain image extending from the background and how even though we know it is only one picture we see multiple things. I also find it super interesting how you kind of have to change how you look at it to see both images. The book had example photos showing different pictures and they have black and white used with two separate images (it appears) and you have to focus your eyes differently to see each one. I find it super interesting how just changing where you focus your eyes allows you to see things differently and from a much different perspective.
2a) I found Kohler to be most interesting in this chapter.
2b) I thought it was interesting to see Kohler's research and learn about him because I never really had previously. This chapter highlighted Kohler's research when he worked with apes and dealt with problem solving. Thorndike did a lot of research on cats with puzzle boxes and Kohler did not agree with what he did. Thorndike said trial and error led to learning because of accidental success and then the person or animal learned from this behavior. Kohler said that learning was more about problem solving and was a step by step process. He worked with apes and allowed the animals he studied to see everything they had to work with and have all of the elements they would need to solve a problem rather than have a maze where they could not see anything like Thorndike did. I found Kohler to be the most interesting because I think him disagreeing with Thorndike helped a lot with psychology and added onto how learning works. I can see both sides of view on this learning with trial and error as well as the step by step process.
3a) I think the overall message of this chapter was on Gestalt psychology and the contributors to it. It also talked about this new way of thinking and how the process was about experiences and perceptions. I think this chapter was meant to show how this category of thought began to develop and who the major psychologists were involved in it at the time.
3b) I found this chapter to be somewhat interesting. I liked it because it showed a lot of examples and pictures to demonstrate what the psychologists found. I somewhat liked how there were a lot of people mentioned because then you are able to see who contributed what and I thought the chapter did good at explaining what each person did. However, I do sometimes like when chapters just have an overall viewpoint rather than giving a bunch of different names and insight into those specific people because it seems to be harder to remember everything when it's split up by who did what rather than discussing all of the contributions as a whole.
4) I think what will be most useful for me in terms of the history of psychology is seeing how this new way of thinking about psychology and gestalt psychology helped the field progress as a whole. I think learning about some of the ways these theories contradicted others as well as the people involved may help some too. I think the overall message of this chapter combined with who contributed in what way will help with the history of psychology.
5) This built on what I had learned in other classes because I had previously learned about gestalt psychology. That being said, I honestly did not remember anything about it. I thought that this was definitely a good refresher on some of the things I learned in my AP psych class and also helped show me who the people were involved in this because I know I did not learn about very many of them before and did not know about the specific research they were involved in.
6a) The topic I would like to know more about would probably be more about perceptual organization.
6b) I find perceptions really interesting because even though we see things or think we remember things it is not always how it actually was. I find it very interesting how many people think that our memory is a recording device or that whatever we see with our eyes has to be accurate, when really that is not the case. I think it would be interesting to research this topic further and find out more about what other things we may be perceiving differently.
7) The only questions I had for this chapter were more about how Kohler and Thorndike compared to each other and I was wondering who the psychologists of the time thought were right about their theory.
8) Kohler, figure-ground, Gestalt psychology, perceptual organization
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
I found the study of apparent motion or phi phenomenon, which is the the illusion of two separate lights being flashed side by side at such a rapid rate it appears that the the light is just one single source moving side to side.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
It was interesting to me because in my Biology of Psychology class at the moment we are studying vision and this part of the chapter over laps nicely with my other class. The idea that the brain cannot differentiate between two sources of light is very interesting to me. It makes me wonder what else in our world our brains compensate for. What are we actually seeing and what is our brain just filling in for us so we are able to function without being stumped by illusions such as this.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Max Wertheimer to be the most interesting person in this chapter.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
Wertheimer was interesting to me because not only did he argue his own theories on apparent motion he formed an entire field of study around it and renamed it to phi phenomenon to give it more validity. I also found his perseverance even through such a trying time as WW2 to continue his study in a foreign country to be very admirable.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
I believe the overall message of this chapter was the founding of Gestalt psychology and individual perception.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
It was a very interesting chapter for me because it is overlapping with my biology of psychology class and it helps me to better understand the content in both of my classes.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
I think this chapter is useful in understanding the history of psychology because we got an insight into the origins of a field of study in psychology and we could see that not everyone was in agreement, that research had to be done before a certain train of thought won out. It is important to understand that fields such as Gestalt do not just come to be. There is work put into developing them.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter has built onto what I already know about material I have learned in my Biology of Psychology class with topics of vision and perception since that is what I am currently studying in that class.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about functional fixedness
6b) Why?
I would like to learn more about functional fixedness because I would like to know other ways in order to test for this trait, why some have it and others not and if those who are afflicted with it can be trained to think outside of the box.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
I would like to know with the phi phenomenon at what frame per second can the eyes differentiate the light as two separate flashing lights, and not just one light moving side to side.
8) Once you are done with your post make list of the terms and terminology you used in your post.
Max Wertheimer, apparent motions, phi phenomenon, Gestalt Psychology, functional fixedness
1a) What topic did you find interesting? b) Why was it interesting to you?
One of the things that I found interesting was the topic of Gestalt psychology and perception. I thought the figure-ground segregation was really cool. I think that optical illusions is really cool and fun. My favorite form of illusion is when I look at a picture and see more than one different figures, depending on how I focus my attention. Seeing all the figures throughout the text that played eye tricks was really fun for me. I did not know that there was a specific name for the eye tricks, so it was really cool to be able to put a term to it. It was interesting on how many different theories there are over why we only perceive one light instead of two in apparent motion. Wertheimer later referred to the term as phi phenomenon because apparent applied that motion was not actually perceived. It’s really fascinating how the mind can play tricks on our perception to come to another conclusion.
2a) What person did you find interesting? 2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I found Max Wertheimer to be interesting. Because he was a Jew he had to take refuge in America due to the Nazi takeover of Germany during his years as a psychologist there. He is seen as the founder of Gestalt psychology. I was interested with his thoughts on productive thinking because it shows that children could be more creative theorists if they truly understand the concept of area. While observing a geometry class he saw that students memorized the rule for finding area but didn’t really understand the meaning of area. When he revisited class with different parallelogram sketches that students were unable to figure it out. His suggested that teachers begin with simple physical examples that students could easily grasp. Then, rectangular surfaces could be understood as combinations of square fields. Knowing that students could be shown that any parallelogram could be transferred into a rectangle by chopping off one end and connecting it to the other. He published “Productive Thinking.” The main topic where Wertheimer talks about Gestalt psychology is when he speaks about how children are able to learn geometry. He came to the conclusion that we perceive not whole events not components.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter? 3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I think the overall message of this chapter was on Gestalt psychology, and how it came to be and what contributions it made. I enjoyed this chapter, it talked about things that were cool but kind of difficult at the time for people to understand. This chapter discusses about science and psychology is no longer based out of philosophy but that it is about research and understanding the human mind. Gestalt psychology was a new type of psychology. It went against popular idea of the dissection of the mind. The idea is that in order to understand mind and behavior, you must focus on whole experiences and how they are perceived. The work of the psychologists in this chapter gave us a new way of thinking and a new way of problem-solving to America.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Knowing about why we do what we do in society is very important. Rather than thinking and standing up for oneself, most people are just willing to do whatever they are told by an authority figure and that can be very dangerous for a society. This chapter helps in the learning about the mental and cognitive contributions to psychology. In this chapter we begin to better understand perception and are that much closer in understanding why psychology is the way it is today.
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
This chapter builds on to the ways of thinking that we have learned about in the previous chapters. This chapter showed a different way of thinking. Also, we learned about some of these ideas in cognitive psychology.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about? 6b) Why?
I would like to learn more about the Zeigarnik Effect because I want to learn more about what the effect. I want to know more about how Zeigarnik came to research that idea about different tasks relating to memory and what the effect actually involves.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
How does our mind change back and forth what we see in a picture?
8) Terms: Zeigarnik Effect, cognitive psychology, Gestalt psychology, Max Wertheimer
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
The topic that interested me most in Chapter 9 was perceptual organization.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
The principles associated with this topic reminded me of optical illusions. It was interesting how changing the focus of attention can change the subject matter in the same illustration. I suppose instead of an optical illusion I should call it a “figure ground reversal” instead.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Max Wertheimer and his work on productive thinking interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I can relate to Wertheimer’s distaste of the “traditional” way to solve a geometry problem. He believed that children could have more productive thought patterns if they understood the concepts behind the equations instead of only memorizing the facts they needed. It makes sense that if a child understands the concept, it is more easily applicable than straight from memory; insight trumps memorization.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
The overall message of the chapter was to explore major concepts and important scientists in relation to Gestalt psychology.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
I did not particular enjoy this chapter because I feel that Gestalt psychology is an alternative to behaviorism. I lean more in favor of behaviorism and conditioning as the source of human behavior.
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
Gestalt psychology is an important perspective in terms of the whole being more important than its parts. Gestalt scientists furthered research in the psychological principles of grouping by similarity and proximity, continuation, and figure-ground (optical illusion test).
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
The concept of proximity tripped me up a bit because in another class of mine the term is used in a different manner. Proximity here is used to describe shapes or figures that seem to belong together, whereas in my other course proximity is discussed in terms of physical closeness or separateness with intimate partners.
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
I would like to learn more about perception.
6b) Why?
I learned basic principles related to perception, but no experimental examples on how it was studied.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
Is Gestalt psychology still around today? If so, is it common or is it overshadowed by the evidence-based cognitive-behavioral psychology? What are Gestalt psychology’s uses in modern times?
Terms: perceptual organization, figure ground reversal, Wertheimer, productive thinking, insight, memorization, similarity, proximity, continuation
1a) Mentality of apes
1b) I was intrigued on how his experiments were used and I was actually impressed that he didn’t make situations easy because I was thinking when I read it that he would stage the experiment to make himself look better
2a) Kohler.
2b) what I was motivated with was that Kohler was so persistent in his desire to get his study the recognition that he believed it deserved that he was willing to go through everything he needed to do. I read that he took advice from critics rather than defending his point which to me is a class act that many might not respect.
3a) it was clear that Gestalt psychology was the focus. The deeper focus seemed to be on the men that contributed to it. I think the main message was one of an information approach for us to realize the big names and connect them to gestalt.
3b) I was interested in the reading, I like to learn about the many different people that were involved in a field that results in a lot of experimentation. If anything this reading made me want to YouTube all the different experiments to see how they were done and to see how I would do as well.
4) I can see patterns in what the studies have shown as well as see the different people that were introduced. What I can take from this and apply to my history is that I would pattern that we will find the expanded branches of what these men moved into and how the chapters in the future will lead us to the deeper connections of gestalt.
5) In some previous chapters we learned about how the brain connects as well as what eyesight does at times that could trick us. When we learned about perceptions more in particular I see the immediate connection. Also kohler recites Thorndike when he talks about his theories.
6a) Mentality of apes
6b) I am always intrigued about what animal behaviors contradict what events. I want to know more about what these apes were challenged with and how that gain of knowledge contributed to what we can learn and know today.
7) I was concerned about the safety of the apes. I didn’t read about the safety precautions that Kohler took, I just simply read that he placed them with a motivating substance and had some boxes or bamboo around the places that were holding the food.
8) Terminology: Mentality of apes, Gestalt Psychology, Thorndike, Kohler,
1a) I found the topic of apparent motion, or phi phenomenon, to be interesting in this chapter. 1b) I find this topic to be interesting because the whole process of it is really amazing. People, like Whertheimer, were trying to find explanations for how this occurred. They looked for ways to explain how our brains and eyes perceived these lights as having moved, rather than just separate lights blinking at different intervals.
2a) I found Lewin to be the interesting person from this chapter. 2b) He was interesting because he really began to push forward the development of social psychology. (He also lived in Iowa, which is very cool.) I find social psychology to be really interesting and one of the things I enjoy reading and learning about. He also contributed to a lot of other branches. He looked at developmental psychology. He explains the concept of differentiation and how that works with older children compared to younger ones. Lewin did a lot in his lifetime. He really wanted to bring improvement to society.
3a) I think the overall message was a good one. It was sad reading through it though. This time in history everything was very much up in the air with Hitler coming into power. What he did had such an awful influence on the lives of many. Not to mention the fact the U.S. was experiencing the Great Depression. 3b) I found this chapter to be interesting. Honestly, I think it takes a different look into history. The focus isn’t about the world wars and it’s not about Hitler or the Great Depression. It focused on what was moving forward and what was developing during this time in psychology. For me, it’s hard to think about this time and not focus on the Depression or the wars. I didn’t realize how many other things that were also happening that actually was a positive occurrence.
4) I think the most helpful thing I can take away from this chapter is the concept that not just one thing happens. Multiple things happen all at once and looking back it seems things were developing at 100m/h. I also gained the realization that even though those bad things happened in history, there were other things happening too that helped us move forward.
5) I think it builds on to concepts we have already discussed and read about. It connects back to other classes we have had. Even in introduction to psychology, we look at these concepts that were developed long ago.
6a) I think I would like to learn more about principles of perceptual organization. 6b) The ideas behind it were interesting it just didn’t go into enough depth for me. I also would like to see what the current standpoint is on it.
7) How did the Great Depression and Hitler’s uprising do to those psychologists that weren’t Jewish? Did any of those events actually hinder the development of some of the ideas that were being studied or would have they been discovered anyway?
8)
TERMS:
Great Depression
Hitler
principles of perceptual organization
Lewin
Differentiation
Social psych
Developmental psych
Whertheimer
apparent motion
phi phenomenon
1). A: I think the Zeigarnik effect is the most interesting thing in this chapter.
B: I just found this research and the work Lewin did with this was very interesting. I think all the research is very interesting and background is very interesting for this effect.
2). A: I found Max Wertheimer the most interesting.
B: I think I found him the most interesting because I had never heard of Gestalt Psychology and he is the founder of it so it was interesting reading about him and this type of Psychology.
3). A: I thought this chapter had a good overall message.
B: I didn’t know much about anything that was talked about in this chapter and I always enjoy learning new things. Yes this chapter was interesting to me it brought me new knowledge and understanding about the history of psychology.
4). I think understand what Gestalt psychology is will be critical to my understanding of psychology because before this chapter I may have heard of this topic once. I haven’t learned anything about it before so this chapter was essential to all my knowledge about this topic as a whole.
5). This chapter built on what I already knew by giving me an entire knew type of psychology so now I know about more types of psychology that I didn’t know before. I have heard this term a few times in my life and now I finally know what it is.
6). A: I would like to learn more about the research of Gestalt psychology, such as the Von Restorff effect. I would also like to learn about how this is builds in more with the great depression.
B: I think it is very important to learn about the research because it helps you learn more about the topic. I also don’t know much about this and I think there is more research that wasn’t brought up in book. I think that it would be interesting to learn about because that would be relating it to something that I am aware of and a real life event.
7). A question I have is how important is Gestalt Psychology because I have taken a lot of psychology classes and I haven’t learned about this at all and a follow up to that would be if its not important than they is there a full chapter about it for this class?
8). Zaigarnik effect, Lewin, Max Wertheimer, Gestalt Psychology, Von Restorff effect, research, great depression.
1a) What topic did you find interesting?
the Sentence “The important thing about studying the mind was not to examine its contents, or even to understand the underlying physiology, but to understand how the mind operates to create our experiences”.
1b) Why was it interesting to you?
Because a majority of this chapter focused on sensation and perception, and how our mind works. i just thought how that phrase outlined the whole chapter in one sentence.
2a) What person did you find interesting?
I found Kurt Lewin highly interesting.
2b) Why were they interesting to you?
I had heard about him in my I/O psychology classes, and never really knew who he was or much about him aside from his contributions to I/O psychology. I found it interesting that he worked / lived in iowa for a few years. Also i liked how he did research on topics like prejudice, group influence, and leadership. Prejudice is a big factor for me, and i’d like to look and see what he thought on the subject. Also his B= f(P, E) seemed interesting, especially the Life Space part of it.
3a) What do you think of the overall message of the chapter?
to understand how the mind operates and how we experience things.
3b) Was it interesting to you? Why or why not?
4) What did you read in the chapter that you think will be most useful to in understanding the history of psychology?
a quote by Lewin “there is nothing quite as practical as a good theory”
5) How, in what ways, does this chapter relate (build on) to what you have already learned about the History of Psychology or to material you have learned in other classes?
It offered a glance back at I/O psychology from a different chapter, and made a reference to Karl Lashley from chapter 3
6a) What topic would you like to learn more about?
Probably Lewin’s research on prejudice
6b) Why?
because false superiority is a pet peeve of mine and i intend to do some research on it in my future career. I’d like to see what Lewin had found more in depth in that research, in part because i like social psychology.
7) What ideas or questions related to what you were reading did you have while reading the chapter?
i kind of wonder what led up to the suicide of Karl Duncker
sensation, perception, B= f(P, E) , Life Space, I/O psychology, Karl Lashley, Karl Duncker
1a)
1b)
I found the Lewin Field Theory and all of its applications to be interesting. It reminded me a lot of behaviorist structure that explains processes which have always occurred. For Lewin this meant creating an interesting diagram of his “life space” and a map of forces that act on a person. I myself have felt a lack of equilibrium, when negative valence especially is in my life space. It is interesting to know that a system is set up to represent these valence sensations, which includes such detail as the direction of a certain goal, or its vector, and that all of the possible but momentarily irrelevant forces that act on a person are labeled in its foreign hull.
2a)
2b)
Wertheimer was an interesting scientist in this chapter due to his involvement in various research. I understood the idea of motion picture before, but I had never been introduced to apparent motion. Wertheimer's theory on this phi phenomenon intrigued me since it explained just how cartoons are made, and had shown a great application of psychological work which had a great impact on society at that time and moving forward.
3a)
3b)
I think a good message of the chapter was that different ideas of thinking would still arise even in this experimental stage of science which is still the standard for today but had evolved from theoretical thinking from early in the book. It is also trying to get across that while these theories can be flawed, they produce information that can further thinking for the future or bring flaws in the current way of thinking to life. This is represented closely in the gestalt attack on behaviorists for not accounting for personal factors of an individual and relying on individual elements to understand a whole. While I don't always agree with looking at absolutely everything as a whole unit for what it is, as I find atomism to be useful when not to an extreme, it brought to light the concept of seeing things as a whole when they simply can not be broken down.
4)
The different views on psychology, like the gestalt I just mentioned, were able to form new areas of psychology, like individual psych and others, to help promote psychological thinking in all walks of life. I believe it helps me to think about new ways to apply psychological thinking that can help cover new areas in which psychology can benefit.
5)
This chapter has helped me bring the ideas of work place psychology to light by showing experiments for such things as zeigarnik effect and how it originated. Now I feel I have realized why episodes of tv shows sometimes stop halfway through an action scene to be continued later and why teachers do the same with lectures. This ability to recall information easier is applicable to many different areas of life, and now I understand its origin.
6a)
6b)
I would like to learn more about Gestaltism because I am confused as to some of their implications of ideas and theories. I don't entirely understand how they see things differently, specifically in the case of the cat mazes, and what they thought needed to be changed.
7)
I questioned the application of act psychology and its actual relevance in today's society.
8)
Field theory, life space, equilibrium, vector, valence, foreign hull, apparent motion, phi phenomenon, zeigarnik effect, act psychology