Gestalt principles

Gestalt Psychology

1. Activity Examine the ff. pictures. What word do you see?

2. Objectives: Describe the different gestalt principles. List ways of applying gestalt psychology in teaching-learning process. Demonstrate appreciation of the usefulness of gestalt principles in the teaching-learning process.

3. Gestalt Psychology Gestalt Principles Insight Learning Life space ( Lewin ) Law of Proximity Law of Closure Law of Good Continuation Law of Good Pragnanz Law of Figure/Ground Inner Forces Outer Forces

4. Gestalt psychology - was at the forefront of the cognitive psychology. It served as the foundation of the cognitive perspective to learning. It opposed the external and mechanistic focus of behaviorism. It considered the mental processes and products of perception

5. The term Gestalt means “form” or “configuration”. Psychologist Max Wertheimer,Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka studied perception and concluded that perceivers are not passive , but rather activ e.

6. They suggested that learners do not just collect information as is but they actively process and restructure data in order to understand it. This is the perceptual process and certain factors impact on this perceptual process.

7. Gestalt Principles Law of Proximity Elements that are close together will be perceived as a coherent object.

8. Law of Similarity Elements that look similar will be perceived as part of the same form.

9. Law of Closure We tend to fill the gaps or “close” the figures we perceive. We enclose a space by completing a contour and ignoring gaps in the figure.

10. Law of Good Continuation Individuals have the tendency to continue contours whenever the elements or the pattern establish an implied direction. People tend to draw a good continuation line.

11. Law of Good Pragnanz The stimulus will be organized into as good a figure as possible.

12. Law of Figure/Ground We tend to pay attention and perceive things in the foreground first. A stimulus will be perceived as separate from its ground.

13. Insight Learning Gestalt Psychology adheres to the idea of learning taking place by discovery or insight. The idea of insight learning was first developed by Kohler in which he described experiments with the apes. Apes could used boxers and sticks as tools to solve problem. In the box, a banana is attached to the top of a chimpanzee’s cage. The banana is out of the reach but can be reached by climbing on or jumping from a box.

14. Chica on the jumping stick Grande on an insecure construction

15. Sultan making a double stick

16. Only one Kohler’s ape (Sultan) could solve this problems. A much more difficult problem which involved the stocking of boxes. This problem require the ape to stack on box on another, and master gravitational problems by building a stable stack. Sultan, Kohler’s very intelligent ape, was able to master a two-stick problem by inserting one stick into the end of the other in order to reach the food.

17. In each of the problems, the important aspect of learning was not reinforcement, but the coordination of thinking aspect of learning was not reinforcement, but the coordination of thinking to create new organization. Kohler referred to this as insight or discovery of learning.

18. Gestalt Principles and the Teaching Learning-Process The six gestalt principles not only influence perception but they also impact on learning. Kurt Lewin’s theory focusing on “life space” adhered to gestalt psychology. He said that individual has inner and outer voice.

19. Inner forces- include his own motivation, attitudes and feelings. Outer forces- include the attitude and behavior of teacher and classmates.

20. Mario Polito - an Italian psychologist, writes about the relevance of gestalt psychology to education.

21. Thank You 