This document discusses Gestalt theory and its implications in educational psychology. It summarizes key concepts from Gestalt psychology including that it views perception and learning as holistic processes. It outlines some of the main Gestalt factors or principles that influence how people organize visual elements, including proximity, similarity, closure, and figure-ground effect. It also briefly describes some classic Gestalt studies on visual perception and insight learning in apes.

2. SCOPE OF PRESENTATION
 EVOLUTION
 THEORY
 STUDIES
 GESTALT’S FACTORS
 IMPLICATIONS IN EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

3. •Gestalt is a psychology term which means "unified
whole“
•Theories
of visual perception
German psychologists in the 1920s.
developed by
•These theories attempt to describe how people tend
to organize visual elements into groups or unified
wholes when certain principles are applied
•Gestalt was a holistic approach and rejected the
mechanistic perspectives of the stimulus - response
models

4. Max Wertheimer Wolfgang Köhler
Kurt Koffka

5. GESTALT THEORY

6. GESTALT STUDIES OF LEARNING
INSIGHT AND MENTALITY OF APES
 Köhler: intelligence in apes
 Solving the problem:
 Could
the chimp see the
“whole” problem?
 Would proximity of objects
influence
solution
of
problem?
 Insight
 Spontaneous understanding
of relationships

7. There is no line making a triangle, so how do we
see one?

8. BISTABLE FIGURE
Can’t explain how we could see two different images that
alternate another one, glass/silhouette ???

10. If we're thinking about the
perils of growing old, we'll on
average see the old
woman. But if we're focused
on the joys of youth and
beauty, it's the young
woman that will appear.

12. GESTALT’S FACTORS
Similarity

13. GESTALT’S FACTORS

PROXIMITY

14. GESTALT’S FACTORS

Closure
http://graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu/tutorials/process/gestaltprinciples/closure/closure_a.gif

15. GESTALT’S FACTORS
Good continuation

16. FIGURE/GROUND
Failing to divide figure from ground

17. The Factor of Closure - brain attempts to complete part to
generate the whole.
The Factor of Proximity - when elements are grouped closely
together, they are percieved as wholes.
The Factor of Similarity - learning is facilitated if similar ideas are
treated and linked together and then contrasted with opposing or
complementary sets of ideas.
The Figure-Ground Effect - eye tends to see the objects, rather
than the spaces or holes between them.