Gestalt psychology is a branch of psychology that appeared in Germany and Austria in the early 20th century. This is a current of thought that focused above all on perception and its cognitive component: its authors defended the idea that what our senses do not reproduce the world as it is, but rather reconstruct it following a series of principles that can be studied. The word "gestalt" as used in this discipline can be translated as "pattern" or "configuration".
Among the main authors of this current we find such important psychologists as Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka. Both they and their disciples argued that humans perceive patterns and ordered sets, instead of detecting individual elements. One of the main tasks of Gestalt psychology and its developers was to study some of the principles that determine human perception, especially visual perception.
Thus, the psychologists of this branch studied phenomena such as proximity, continuity, closure or connection. Today, Gestalt psychology has expanded to other areas such as therapy. However, it is a current that has not evolved much during the last century, although its principles are still being studied and are very important in the field of perception.
Gestalt Theory The phenomenon that Gestalt psychologists focused on the most was perception, especially vision and the organization of it. This interest began in 1912 when Wertheimer discovered the "phi phenomenon," an optical illusion in which various stationary objects appear to move when presented very quickly. This allowed them to postulate the principle of the permanence of vision.
The discovery of the phi phenomenon revealed that the idea that our vision simply represents the world as it really is is false. Thus, Wertheimer began to investigate and soon realized the existence of what he called "emergent phenomena", which are experiences of perception that do not derive from elements of reality but from the way our mind works. From this moment Wertheimer and his disciples began to investigate some of the rules that govern our visual perception.
Later they extended the principles of this current to other areas, such as learning, thought, motivation, personality or social psychology. Within the field of perception, Gestalt psychology is still of great importance, since it was the first trend that managed to explain many phenomena that had not been understood until then: optical illusions, the perception of movement or perceptual constancy, among others. others.
Theoretical framework Gestalt psychologists developed a series of theoretical principles that guided them in the approach of all their theories. The most important were the principle of totality, and the principle of psychophysical isomorphism. The principle of totality states that the conscious experience must be considered globally, since the sum of all the elements is greater than the set of its parts separately.
Thus, within a set of elements the so-called "emergent properties" appear, which cannot be observed if all the pieces are not present. An example of this is the aforementioned phi phenomenon, which only appears when static photographs are presented in succession and very quickly. This phenomenon could not be observed if there was only one image, or if the necessary degree of speed was not present.
On the other hand, the principle of psychophysical isomorphism posited that there is a direct correlation between conscious experience and brain activity. Thus, for each perceptual phenomenon that we encounter, it would be possible to find some type of brain activity that accompanies it. Methodology Based on these two theoretical principles, Gestalt psychologists created new ways of investigating human perception.
The most important were the experimental analysis of the phenomena, and the biotic experiments; that is, experiments carried out in natural environments and with poorly controlled situations. Properties Emergence Also known as the principle of appearance, it draws an image in the mind from a global perception that we have been acquiring with previous visual perceptions. That is, although the mind does not clearly determine what object exists from its parts, it is possible that it emerges in the mind from the global form.
For example, thanks to this principle of emergence, it would be explained that a group of zebras can be perceived eating despite the fact that the set of its parts is not defined. Perception arises from the totality of the image, after our mind builds the shape of animals or shadows. Reification Also called reification.
It refers to the non-explicit spatial information that we perceive when viewing an image. That is, the mind is capable of extracting more details than the shape of the image shows us. For example, in the illustration on the left our mind can perceive three triangles even though the image does not show it to us explicitly.
In turn, in the image on the right we can see a three-dimensional figure, when it really is a 2D drawing. Multistability It is also known as multistable perception. It explains the phenomenon that occurs in the mind when you can see two objects/silhouettes in the same image.
This visual perception is explained very well with the Rubin cup. In this illustration, the human mind can determine that it is seeing a glass or two human faces in profile. Invariance In this phenomenon, the mind is capable of perceiving simple geometric objects even if they are modified in their rotation, scale or translation.
Even being elastically distorted or deformed or applying lighting or contrast changes, the perception of it will still be recognizable. For example, in the following image we see the famous boomerang toy, from various perspectives, deformations and light contrasts. Despite these distortions, the toy is still perceivable in our minds.
Gestalt Laws One of the most important contributions of Gestalt psychology was the creation of a list of principles that govern visual perception. Next we will see which are the best known of them along with an example for each one. 1- Figure-ground principle The figure-ground principle argues that people automatically perceive objects as if they were superimposed on the background in which they are framed.
Thus, they can stand out from it, or on the contrary merge with it and be difficult to perceive visually. For example, in this image it is easy to perceive the point on the right as different from the background in which it is located; but it is much more complicated to determine the same with the point on the left. 2- Principle of similarity The principle of similarity defends that when several elements seem to be similar to each other, we tend to group them together and think that they have the same function or belong to the same set.
For example, in this image the black and white dots seem to form two separate groups, even though they are all located at the same distance from each other and have no distinguishing features other than their color. 3- Proximity principle The proximity principle states that figures that are close to each other in a space tend to be perceived as a whole, even though they are not really part of the same group. In this example, the circles that are closest to each other seem to belong to the same figure, while the blank spaces between them give the impression of separating the different sets.
4- Principle of the common region The principle of the common region defends that we tend to group different elements together whenever they seem to belong to the same group or are in a shared space, even if there is no true relationship between them. In this example, the circles that are surrounded by the same blue line appear to be part of the same set, even though they are further apart from each other than from the first point in the next group. 5- Principle of continuity The principle of continuity establishes that the elements that are placed in a curved or straight line seem to have a greater relationship with each other than with other elements that are outside of it.
In this drawing, for example, we can perceive two intertwined strings in the drawing on the left instead of perceiving several unconnected shapes, as in the lower example on the right. However, there is no real reason for us to perceive them this way. 6- Closure principle The closure principle postulates that when we look at a complex set of elements, we tend to look for a single pattern that is easily recognizable.
In this way, for example, when we look at an image that seems to be incomplete, our brain automatically fills in the gaps so that we can recognize the figure represented. For example, in this figure we can see a circle and a square represented even though both are incomplete. 7- Focus principle The focus principle establishes that any element that stands out visually will catch the viewer's attention and will prevail over the rest of the components of the image.
For example, in this image the focal point is clearly the smiling face, which stands out from the rest of the photo due to its color and shape. 8- Law of Pregnancy This law indicates that a figure is immediately perceived by the human mind due to the regular relationships with that object. That is, it is so everyday that it does not require stimulation of visual perception to determine what it is.
For example, in the following silhouette we clearly see a dog because it is a very familiar figure.
