Thursday, March 21, 2013

Gestalt-Theory


Gestalt-Theory
 Gestalt theory of the Berlin school is the theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves. Although Max Wertheimer is credited as the founder of the movement, the concept of Gestalt was first introduced in contemporary philosophy and psychology by Christian von Ehrenfels (a member of the School of Brentano. The idea of Gestalt has its roots in theories by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach. Gaining prominence just after the first world war, Gestalt psychology had its greatest successes in the field of perception. The Gestaltists hold that the mind is active in the experience of reality to such an extent that it gives to reality not only its meaning but its very physical characteristics as well. Basing their beliefs on numerous experiments, the most famous of which involve shifting figure/ground relationships, they have argued that the color, shape, size, density, and brightness of objects in the world are products of the operation of the creative mind on an essentially dumb or neutral nature. 

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