Gestalt Psychology

A Presentation by
Quelazon, Arlyn Mae
&
De La Cruz, Angelica

Of BEED II
 Presenter's Objectives:
• To fully understand the different gestalt
principles.

• To be able to think of ways of how Gestalt

Psychology be of use in the teaching – learning
process, as future educators.

• To be able to demonstrate an appreciation of

the usefulness of gestalt psychology in the
teaching-learning process.
Before we proceed to the main
discussion….

…. Let us first define Cognitive Psychology….

What Is Cognitive Psychology?..

Cognitive Psychology…

• By definition, Cognitive psychology involves the

study of internal mental processes—all of the
things that go on inside your brain, including
perception, thinking, memory, attention,
language, problem-solving, and learning.
Cognitive Psychology…

… is important to study cognitive

psychology to gain an
UNDERSTANDING of other people and
their THOUGHT PROCESSES.
 Important Terms to Remember:
Perception-
means the processing and the interpretation of
sensory information.

Sensation-
Process which our sense organs receive and
transmit information.
As Sartain (1973) puts it, our task as
observers is to interpret this information in
the light of relevant memories from the past
experience.

Hence, Perception is the organization of

sensory input into meaningful
experience.
• In behaviorism, Perception serves as the
encoding process prior to understand one’s
behavior.

• In Gestalt Psychology, Perception serves as

the interpretation of what we actually see in
our environment.
1. Perception Becomes one of the determinants of
learning.
Successful perception is intrinsically rewarding.

2. We tend to learn the standards that wee

experience.
What we perceive, especially under consistent or chronic
conditions, seems to somehow incorporates within our
personal value system.
Gestalt Psychology..

-Is the forefront of Cognitive Psychology.

-It serves as the foundation of the cognitive

perspective to learning.
 Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt Principles
Insight Learning Lifespace (Lewin)

Inner Forces
Law Of Proximity
Law of Closure

Outer Forces
Law of Similarity
Law of Good
Continuation
Law of Good
Pragnanz
Law of Figure/
Ground
The word is a German word that means the way
a thing has been “placed,” or “put together.”
There is no exact equivalent in English. “Form” and “shape” are the usual
So what is Gestalt
translations;
psychology?
in psychology the word is often interpreted
as “pattern” or “configuration.”
(Britannica.com)
…is a school of thought that looks at the human mind and
behavior as a whole. When trying to make sense of the
world around us, Gestalt psychology suggests that we do
not simply focus on every small component.

It was the initial cognitive response to behaviorism.

It emphasized the importance of sensory wholes and the

dynamic nature of visual perception.
 They studied perception and concluded
Max Wertheimer
that the perceivers ( or learners ) are not

Wolfgang Kohler Known

passive, as the
but rather 3 Founders
active.
of GESTALT
They suggested that leaners do not just
Kurt Koffka PSYCHOLOGY.
collect information as it is but they
actively process and RECONSTRUCT
DATA in order to understand it.
Known as the
Perceptual
Process.
Factors like:

Past experiences
Needs
Attitudes
One’s Situation

Affects Human
Perception.
According to this law,
Elements that are
will be “Objects that are
closer together
perceived as a coherent are perceived as
more related than
object.
objects that are
further apart.”

We are perceiving objects

according to their
.
Elements that look similar
will be perceived as part of
the same form.
If a number of objects in a
scene are
, you will naturally
group them together and
perceive them as a whole.
“Elements that
share similar
characteristics are
perceived as more
related than
elements that
don't share those
characteristics.”
We tend to fill Gaps or
“close” the figures we
“When seeing a
perceive. complex
arrangement of
elements, we tend
to look for a
single,
We enclose a space by recognizable
pattern.”
completing a contour and
ignoring gaps in the figure.
 (OUR MIND FILLS IN THE GAPS)

is an aspect of perception in which the object as

perceived contains more spatial information than what
is actually present. As we attempt to match what we see
to the familiar patterns we have stored in memory, there
isn’t always an exact match. Instead we find a near
match and then fill in the gaps of what we think we
should see.
Closure seeks simplicity. With closure, we instead
combine parts to form a simpler whole. Our eye fills in
the missing information to form the complete figure.
Individuals have the
tendency to continue
contours whenever the
elements of the pattern
establish an implied
direction. People tend to
draw a good continuous line.
The stimulus will be
organized into a good
figure as possible. It “People will
perceive and
means it refers to interpret
ambiguous or
symmetry, simplicity, and complex images as
the simplest
regularity. form(s) possible.”

Figures are seen in their Based on our experience with

simplest elements instead perception, we “expect” certain
of their complicated patterns and therefore perceive that
shapes. expected patterns.
When confronted with complex shapes, we tend to
reorganize them into simpler components or into a
simpler whole. You’re more likely to see the left image
above composed of the simple circle, square and triangle
like you see on the right than as the the complex and
ambiguous shape the whole forms.
We tend to pay attention and
perceive things in the
foreground first.

A Stimulus will be perceived

as separate from its
Elements are
perceived as either
foreground.
figure (the
element in focus)
or ground (the
background on
which the figure
rests).”
• Contour – Provides a boundary to a

shape, but not itself’s shapes

(Silverman, 1979)
 is the tendency of ambiguous perceptual
experiences to move unstably back and forth between
alternative interpretations.

You can’t see both at once. Instead you bounce back and
forth quickly between the two stable alternatives. One will
tend to be your dominant perception and the longer you go
without begin able to see the other, the harder it will be to
see that other perception.
Insight Learning
Gestalt Psychology adheres the idea of
learning taking place by discovery or
insight.

The idea of insight was first developed by

Wolfgang Kohler through an experiment.
• 1) Failure- The chimps jump at the bananas that are hung
out of their reach.
• 2) Pause- After the chimp has been trying to reach the
bananas for a certain period of time, with no success, they
become frustrated, walk away, and pause as they retreat.
• 3) Look at the Potential Tools- The chimp looks from the
food to the tools, then back at the food and back at the
tools again.
• 4) The Attempt- The chimps begin to use the bars or
the crates to get to the food.
The chimps suffered extreme
frustration as they tried everything
from running and jumping, all of which
did not help them in their struggle to
get to their food. The monkeys did not
use trial and error to get to the
understanding that the objects given to
them could help them get to the food; it
simply came to them in a moment of
insight.
At this, the important aspects of learning
was not reinforcements, but
COORDINATION OF THE THINKING.

Therefore, Insight is not necessarily

observable by another person.
Other terms for Insight learning
•Epiphany – sudden revelation
•Eureka
•Aha moment
 Trial and Error and Insight
learning.
• Is habit formation. No mental
processes a re involved.
• Success is due to chance.
• Gradual ,needs practice.
• Acquisition, retention and
transfer of learning are not
posible.
• Fit for learning motor skill,
languange and arithmetic skills.
• High mental processes like
comprehension, analysis and
generalization takes place.
• Sudden awareness or insight
after implicit trial and error.
• Doesn’t need practice.
• Posible
• Fit for learning scientific
involving creative thinking and
understanding
Insight learning depend on certain
factors:
• Experience
• Intelligence
• Learning situation/learning
environment
• Repetition and generalization
• Initial efforts.
 Characteristics of Insight Learning

TWO MAIN CHARACTERISITICS:

• Insight represents seeing clearly into the heart or essence of a

situation.

• We do not do this by a step-by-step process, but partially by

unconscious processes.
 Some other characteristics of Insight Learning are as
follows:

• Insight leads to change in perception.

• Insight is sudden.
• With insight, the organism tends to perceive a pattern or organization
(that helps in learning).
• Understanding plays important role n insight learning.
• Insight is related with higher order animals and not with inferior
animals.
• Age influences insight learning. Adults are better learner than children.
• Past experience and perceptual organization is important in perception.
• The six Gestalt Principles not only impacts on learning.

• Other psychologist like Kurt Lewin expounded on

Gestalt Psychology.

German American psychologist who treated

psychology as a social science.
He Proposed the theory of
“Life Space”
•Kurt Lewin – Translated Gestalt
philosopies into experiences. In His
theory called “field theory”. This
examines patterns of interaction
between individual and the total
field or environment.

“Person should be instead of being

composed of discrete parts.”
 Life Space
A life-space contains the individual himself,
the goals he is seeking (positive valence) or
avoiding (negative valence), the barriers that
restrict the individual’s movements and the
path he must follow to reach his goal.
It is also called the psychological field. The
psychological field is the space in which the
person moves psychologically. It contains the
whole of one’s psychological reality – one’s self
and what one thinks of or what one gains from
one’s physical and social environment.
According to Lewin, an individual has inner
and outer forces that affects his perception
and also learning.
Inner Forces:
• Own Motivation
• His/ her attitude
• Feelings

Outer force:
• Attitude/Behavior of the teachers and
classmates
Classroom Implications of Kurt
Lewin’s theory.
•Teaching – learning implication
should include the significance of
seeing the total situation at the
beginning of the lesson or activity.
an Italian psychologist writes
about the relevance of Gestalt
psychology to education
• “Gestalt Psychology is focused on the experience of contact that
occurs in here and now… it considers with interest the life space
of teachers as well as students. It takes interest in the
complexity of experience….. It stimulates learning as experience
and the experience as source of learning…. Knowledge is
conceived as a continuous organization and rearrangement of
information according to needs, purposes and meanings…. It
asserts that learning is not accumulation but remodeling of
insight.. Autonomy and Freedom of the students is stimulated
by the teacher…The time necessary for assimilation and for
cognitive and existential remodeling is respected. The contact
experience between teachers and students is given value- an
authentic meeting based on sharing ideas and affections…”
Main principles of Gestalt Theory.
1. Gestalt Psychologists suggest educators to conceive the
problem of learning in a more comprehensive way.
- Proper Instrucional Material should be based on the laws
of organization.
2. Teachers should encourage their students to discover the
relationships of the elements that make up a problem.

3. Incongruites ,gaps or disturbances are essential stimuli in

the learning theory.
“The whole is greater than the sum
of it’s part.”

“The Gestalt Theory proposes that

learning consist of the grasping of a
structural whole and not just a
mechanistic response to a
stimulus.”
 References:
• https://psychology.knoji.com/why-is-it-important-to-study-cognitive-
psychology/

• https://www.britannica.com/science/Gestalt-psychology

• https://www.verywellmind.com/psychology-schools-of-thought-
2795247#gestalt-psychology

• https://study.com/academy/lesson/gestalt-psychology-definition-principles-
quiz.html
• Praveen Shrestha, "Insight Learning," in Psychestudy, November 17,
2017, https://www.psychestudy.com/behavioral/learning-
memory/insight-learning.

• http://www.psychologydiscussion.net/learning/learning-theory/lewins-
field-theory-of-learning-education/2525

• https://www.slideshare.net/christiangleph/gestalt-psychology-15849804

• https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/03/design-principles-visual-
perception-and-the-principles-of-gestalt/
• https://wagtailfarm.info/relationship/figure-ground-relationship-gestalt-
psychologists.php

• Books:
• General Psychology: Textbook and Manual (2014) From SLSU Main

• Lefton, L (1946) Psychology:2nd Edition Published by Allyn and Bacon Inc.

Boston Massachussetts, USA

• Sevilla, C.G. Et.al (1988) General Psychology with Values Development

Lessons Published By Rex Book Store, Philipines

• McMahon, F. B. , McMahon J. W. (1982) Psychology: The Hybrid Science:

5th Edition Published in the United States.