Discuss Gestals psychology contribution to our understanding of perseption, including the figure-ground relashionship and principles of persceptual grouping in form perception.

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Discuss Gestals psychology contribution to our understanding of perseption, including the figure-ground relashionship and principles of persceptual grouping in form perception.
Lorena Yeves Di Carlo

Gestalt psychology began as a reaction to the behaviorism of Watson and the introspectionism of Titchner.  Gestalt’s argument with behaviorism was the focus on systematic collection and analysis of data from the ; investigating the elements individually without an appreciation for their importance as a whole that was greater than the sum of their parts.  This concept, of an integrated whole, is described by the German word Gestalt, for which there is no English equivalent.  Gestalt psychologists apply this concept to relationships between people, citing the group dynamic of a common enterprise where each individual puts forth his gifts to create something more meaningful than each member could individually.

An early influence on Gestalt psychology was the  ( or ), .  He argued that we do not perceive the world as it is; we impose cause and effect relationships on it and therefore our perceptions are influenced by our experiences. Later, this understanding emerged in Max Wertheimer’s explanation of a phenomenon known as apparent motion.

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, considered to be Gestalt psychology’s founder, was born in Prague in 1880 and studied at the University of Frankfurt. Here he became aware of a form of apparent motion, known as the . The phi phenomenon is experienced when an observer notices that two lights, within close proximity to each other and flashing alternately, appear to be one light moving back and forth to and from both locations. The observer perceives movement, even though none has occurred. This concept is called apparent motion, and is thought to occur because we perceive experiences in a way that calls for the ...

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