Gestalt Principles of Perception

Gestalt psychology developed quickly following the discovery of the phi phenomenon. During the First World War Wertheimer and other psychologists were drafted in to military service. In the army, Wertheimer performed various research projects including one with Erich von Hornbostel in which they developed an instrument capable of precisely determining the direction from the user to a noise source (e.g., the discharge of a cannon). In 1916, Wertheimer moved back to the University of Berlin as an instructor. Quickly, Berlin became the nerve center of Gestalt psychology. In addition to Wertheimer, its Institute of Psychology, led by Köhler (see below), included Hornbostel and Kurt Lewin as faculty. One of its legacies to psychology were Wertheimer’s (1923) principles of Gestalt perception, which still grace the pages of every general psychology textbook today.

Wertheimer (1923) summarized Gestalt principles of perception naming proximity, similarity, common fate, set, direction, closure, good curve, figure-ground, and past experience as the main ones. He argued that for past experience:

Some of our apprehensions are determined in this way. Often arbitrary material can be arranged in arbitrary form and, after sufficient drill, made habitual...And yet, despite its plausibility, the doctrine of past experience brushes aside the real problems of apprehension much too easily (p. 86).

Thus, he acknowledged the role of experience in perception but believed it accounted for only a small piece of the puzzle. Today, modern psychology texts (e.g., Weiten, 2010) typically focus on a shorter list of Gestalt principles. Weiten’s text lists figure-ground, proximity, closure, similarity, simplicity, and continuity. It is tempting to limit Gestalt

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psychology’s effect on psychology to perception only, but that is a mistake. As Rock (1990, p. 61) pointed out when he wrote about the long-term influence of Gestalt psychology:

The list of major perceptual phenomena they elucidated—grouping, figure-ground organization, frames of reference, figural goodness, and apparent motion...is impressive. Although it is logically possible that these discoveries could have been made independently of their methods and theoretical beliefs, it seems unlikely. The Gestalt attack against Structuralism was devastatingly effective. In addition, the Gestaltists were victorious over the Behaviorists in their clash regarding the nature of learning, thinking and social psychology.

From these perceptual beginnings, Gestalt psychology branched out to affect psychology as a whole. The history of Gestalt psychology however is intimately tied to political events in Germany following World War I. The rise of Adolph Hitler in 1933 altered the life courses of Wertheimer and many other Gestalt psychologists. Wertheimer and nearly all of his colleagues were forced to leave Germany. Had they stayed they would have, doubtlessly, fallen into the hands of the Gestapo and been killed.