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Gestalt Psychology is concerned with the idea that human visual perception
is determined by the whole, or complete, object in the field
of view. This stands in contrast
to the older, ‘Elementalist’, idea that perception of a single
object consists of numerous discrete sensations.
Ernst Mach (1838-1916), a german physicist, is known
for his contribution to the founding of the Gestalt school of psychology
and may have been the first to recognise the significance of shape,
or ‘form’ as
it was then called, in perception. Mach considered spatial patterns, such
as geometric figures, and temporal patterns, such as melodies, to be
sensations.
He described these in
his book, The Analysis
of Sensations (1885), in which he suggested that these space-form and time-form
sensations were independent of their elements :
“ In examining two figures which are alike but differently
colored we recognize their sameness of form at first glance,
in spite of the differences in color-sensation. The sight-perceptions,
therefore, must contain some like sensation components. These
are
the space sensations which are the same in the two cases. ” |
E.Mach, "Analysis of Sensations", 1897. |
Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932) expanded Mach’s
work, and suggested that there are qualities of experience that
cannot be explained in terms of combinations of the traditional kinds
of sensations. He called these qualities
"Gestalt qualitäten", which was translated into English as ‘form
qualities’,
and refers to ‘perceptions based on something beyond the individual sensations’.
Mach
and von Ehrenfels developed the ideas that came to be associated with Gestalt
psychology. However, instead of opposing the established
elementalist
framework, as the Gestalt psychologists later did, they added the new element of
"form". Although they criticized the same position
as the Gestalt psychologists, they offered quite a different
solution.
The formal movement known as Gestalt psychology resulted from a research
study conducted in 1910 by the German psychologist Max Wertheimer (1880-1943).
Wertheimer, who had studied under von Ehrenfels, later stated that “the
most important impulse” for the movement came from von Ehrenfels.
Kurt
Koffka (1886-1941) and Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967)
served as subjects for Wertheimer's research problem, and together, Wertheimer,
Koffka and Köhler have become known as the three major figures in
the founding of the Gestalt movement.
Many experiments investigating the
extent to which human visual perception is dominated by the perception
of whole objects followed. This Section consists of short summaries of historial research and theories
into human visual perception of simple two-dimensional objects (these
are extracted and summarised from a Ph.D. Thesis [67] dated
1996).
For more general information about the human visual system see
the sections about:
The
Eye; Parts
of Eye; Visual
Disorders;
Ophthalmological
Procedures. |
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This entry relates to studies
of human visual perception during the 1880s to the 1930-40s.
This Section is about
Theories
of Visual Perception.
To read about other theories and contributions of other researchers,
use the links on the left-hand side. |
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