This chapter argues that smell and flavour perception present distinctive challenges for phenomenological reflection, but that these difficulties can be addressed through a ‘gestaltist’ approach to perceptual organisation. I argue that the ‘chemical’ senses do not generally allow immediate access to ordinary objects like roses and apples, but rather to odours and flavours, the diffuse nature of which make it hard to get a grip on the associated perceptual phenomenology. Drawing on the work of gestalt psychologists and phenomenologists, I (...) outline a modality-neutral approach that emphasises the irreducibly structured nature of perceptual experience and is especially useful for thinking about experiences that are not targeted at ordinary physical objects. Such an approach can clarify and explain nebulous aspects of perceptual experience, illuminating elements of our smell and flavour experiences that may be indeterminate. (shrink)

Victor Vasarely's (1906–1997) important legacy to the study of human perception is brought to the forefront and discussed. A large part of his impressive work conveys the appearance of striking three-dimensional shapes and structures in a large-scale pictorial plane. Current perception science explains such effects by invoking brain mechanisms for the processing of monocular (2D) depth cues. Here in this study, we illustrate and explain local effects of 2D color and contrast cues on the perceptual organization in terms of (...) figure-ground assignments, i.e. which local surfaces are likely to be seen as “nearer” or “bigger” in the image plane. Paired configurations are embedded in a larger, structurally ambivalent pictorial context inspired by some of Vasarely's creations. The figure-ground effects these configurations produce reveal a significant correlation between perceptual solutions for “nearer” and “bigger” when other geometric depth cues are missing. In consistency with previous findings on similar, albeit simpler visual displays, a specific color may compete with luminance contrast to resolve the planar ambiguity of a complex pattern context at a critical point in the hierarchical resolution of figure-ground uncertainty. The potential role of color temperature in this process is brought forward here. Vasarely intuitively understood and successfully exploited the subtle context effects accounted for in this paper, well before empirical investigation had set out to study and explain them in terms of information processing by the visual brain. (shrink)

Summary Landscape planning lacked an evidence-based method for the reflection of planning models on the imaginary level in order to present the image content and the relationships in the image as the basis for interpretation in a verifiable manner. The contribution is based on the thesis that the perceptual analysis according to Rudolf Arnheim can be translated into landscape planning. The case study, here an illustration with two plan sketches for urban and landscape development, is described and interpreted with the (...) Gestalt theoretical perceptual analysis according to the criteria theme, theses, principle sketches and composition lines, interpretation, conclusion and Gestalt theoretical results. The analysed planning sketches have a low “reality level” and are part of the imaginary level. The theory of science contained therein can be understood by Gestalt theory as elementary theory of design. In the sketches, the living spaces and economic areas of the city are divided into the elements ‘settlement’ and ‘landscape’ and thereby undergo a revaluation of their significance. The replacement of figure (city) and ground (landscape) can be interpreted in terms of gestalt theory as a change of theme in the sketches as the greatest possible structural exchange. The results of the analysis are processed as research theses in the contextualisation of landscape planning and thus examined scientifically on the basis of circumstantial evidence against the reality of the living environments of the urban dwellers. The contribution proves that the perceptual analysis according to R. Arnheim is a suitable method in landscape planning for describing and interpreting graphic representations of planning models. Interdisciplinary cooperation is a contribution to the holistic treatment of a topic, because structuralist landscape planning has structural similarities with Gestalt theory and is committed to the dialogical principle. As a theory of organisation (development), Gestalt theory derives principles, structures, their relationships and qualities and is therefore suitable as a meta-theory of landscape planning to characterise the values and ethical bases in planning. This applies to all areas of the field of consciousness in landscape planning. (shrink)

Gestalt theory is discussed as one main precursor of synergetics, one of the most elaborated theories of self-organization. It is a precursor for two reasons: the Gestalt theoretical view of cognitive order-formation comes dose to the central ideas of self-organization. Furthermore both approaches have stressed the significance of non-linear perceptual processes (such as multistability) for the solution of the mind-brain problem. The question of whether Gestalt theory preferred a dualistic or a monistic view of the (...) mind-body relation is answered in that there was a preference for dualism in epistemological questions and for monism in the mind-brain relation. The latter was attained by the concept of psychophysical isomorphism. This concept, although widely misunderstood in many respects, was criticized on the basis of neurobiological findings. One main objection was the neglect of the importance of the elementary neurophysiological processes. A distinction between macroscopic and microscopic brain processes seemed to be required. This idea was taken up in synergetics which postulates a bottom-up and top-down interaction between these two levels. Macroscopic order emerges from elementary brain processes and, at the same time, has a backward slaving effect to the microscopic level In the light of such holistic emergentism, the question whether macroscopic order states might be attractors for psychological meanings is discussed. (shrink)

In lectures and writings in the decades following the publication of Studies in Ethnomethodology [1967], Harold Garfinkel, the founder of ethnomethodology, developed what he called a “misreading” of the phenomenological writings of Aron Gurwitsch, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and others. Garfinkel’s “misreading” included a selective and creative treatment of themes that Gurwitsch drew from Gestalt psychology, such as figure-ground, Gestalt contexture, and the phenomenal field. Rather than identifying these themes with visual perception demonstrated with picture-puzzles (for example, of animals hidden (...) in foliage) and line drawings of reversible figures, Garfinkel used them to demonstrate praxeological and interactional phenomena: organizations of embodied activity that constitute fields of collective action. Phenomenal fields, for Garfinkel, are formed through embodied work performed in concert with the actions of others. Although Harvey Sacks, the founder of Conversation Analysis, did not explicitly mention Gurwitsch, phenomenology or Gestalt psychology in his writings and transcribed lectures, some of his writings on the sequential organization of conversation seem informed, if only indirectly through his relationship with Garfinkel, by Gurwitsch’s treatment of visual and auditory phenomena. Both Garfinkel and Sacks devised innovative ways to transpose Gestalt phenomena from perceptual psychology to social formations. (shrink)

We present select examples of how visual phenomena can serve as tools to uncoverbrain mechanisms. Specifically, receptive field organization is proposed as a Gestalt-like neural mechanism of perceptual organization. Appropriate phenomena, such as brightness and orientation contrast, subjective contours, filling-in, and aperture-viewed motion, allow for a quantitative comparison between receptive fields and their psychophysical counterparts, perceptive fields. Phenomenology might thus be extended from the study of perceptual qualities to their transphenomenal substrates, including memory functions. In conclusion, classic (...) issues of Gestalt psychology can now be related to modern. (shrink)

A classical work on Gestalt psychology from a member of the "Berlin School." Discusses perception in relation to the environment, along with action, learning, memory, and socieity.

Previous studies making use of indirect processing measures have shown that perceptual grouping can occur outside the focus of attention. However, no previous study has examined the possibility of subliminal processing of perceptual grouping. The present work steps forward in the study of perceptual organization, reporting direct evidence of subliminal processing of Gestalt patterns. In two masked priming experiments, Gestalt patterns grouped by proximity or similarity that induced either a horizontal or vertical global orientation of the stimuli (...) were presented as masked primes and followed by visible targets that could be congruent or incongruent with the orientation of the primes. The results showed a reliable priming effect in the complete absence of prime awareness for both proximity and similarity grouping principles. These findings suggest that a phenomenal report of the Gestalt pattern is not mandatory to observe an effect on the response based on the global properties of Gestalt stimuli. (shrink)

A review of the scanty Gestaltist literature on motor behaviour indicates that a genuine Gestalt theoretic approach to motor behaviour can be characterized by three research questions: (1) What are the natural units of motor behaviour? (2) What characterizes the self-organization in motor behaviour? (3) What are the conditions for invariance in motor behaviour? Tentative answers to these questions can be found by analysing the parallels between Gestalt theory and Bernstein's theory of motor actions and by showing (...) that Gestalt theory can be regarded as a specific approach to non-linear dynamics as exemplified by synergetics (Haken, 1991). The congruence between the Gestalt theoretic approach and synergetics becomes apparent in the analysis of how a complex motor task is learned [1]. (shrink)

Review of Wolfgang Metzger, Laws of Seeing, trans. Lothar Spillman, Steven Lehar, Mimsey Stromeyer, and Michael Wertheimer. MIT Press, 2006; paperback, 2009. Pp. xxv+203. £18.95 PB. Original German edition published in 1936.

This article examines the origin of experiential organization, especially whether it is salient or selective. Aron Gurwitsch believes it is salient and William James that it is selective. I argue that Gurwitsch is right, and recount his argument and his critique of James, but I also pose my own critique and critical questions on the issue. -/- Gurwitsch's argument attempts to show that the organization of consciousness is not arbitrary or merely selected in some way by the subject. (...) He claims that when consciousness is organized it is found as already organized. -/- This is important for Gurwitsch's philosophical system because if he can establish that consciousness is always originally organized, then his famous claim that the theme, thematic-field, margin structure of consciousness is an invariant patterning impervious to the subject's whim, mood, or possible noetic training, is protected at the very start. (shrink)

We explore experimental methods used to study the phenomena of perceptual organization, first studied by the Gestalt psychologists. We describe an application of traditional psychophysics to perceptual organization and offer alternative methods. Among these, we distinguish two approaches that use multistable stimuli: (1) phenomenological psychophysics, in which the observer's response is assumed to accurately and directly reflect perceptual experience; and (2) the interference paradigm, in which an observer's response is evaluated as correct or incorrect because it pertains (...) to a corrigible task, but does not directly reflect the observer's experience. We show that phenomenological psychophysics can yield valuable information about perceptual organization and lends itself to the development of quantitative theory. We discuss some criticisms of the method and argue that the two approaches that use multistable stimuli are complementary. We also compare each of the approaches with traditional psychophysics. We conclude that the several methods are convergent. (shrink)

The perception of the lightness of surfaces has been shown to be affected by information about the spatial configuration of those surfaces and their illuminants. For example, two surfaces of equal luminance can appear to be of very different lightness if one of the two appears to lie in a shadow. How are we to understand the character of the processes that integrate such spatial configuration information so as to yield the eventual appearance of lightness? This paper makes some simple (...) observations about the vocabulary of appearance used in these contexts, and proposes that the end results can be called "phenomenal" in a traditional sense of that word. Processes whose products are phenomenal are next distinguished from processes characterized in other terms: (a) processes of perceptual grouping; (b) processes of perceptual organization; and (c) attentional (as opposed to preattentive) processes. These four categories are conceptually and empirically distinct. In particular, the paper reviews some evidence that appearances as of contours, occlusion, and amodally completed shapes can occur preattentively. Some implications for understanding gestalt grouping processes are briefly discussed. (shrink)

The relationship between perceptual categorization and organization processes in 3‐ to 4‐month‐old infants was explored. The question was whether an invariant part abstracted during category learning could interfere with Gestalt organizational processes. Experiment 1 showed that the infants could parse a circle in accord with good continuation from visual patterns consisting of a circle and a complex polygon. In Experiments 2 and 3, however, this parsing was interfered with by a prior category familiarization experience in which infants were (...) presented with visual patterns consisting of a pacman shape and a complex polygon. Part 1 of Experiments 2 and 3 showed that the infants recognized the pacman as familiar, and Part 2 demonstrated that the representation of the pacman blocked the subsequent parsing of the circle. The results suggest that a cognitive system of flexible feature creation can override organizational principles with which a perceptual system may come pre‐equipped. (shrink)

This article presents Simondon’s psycho-biological thinking as a type of heterodox naturalism centring on the self-organizing activity of vital forms. Despite his critique of classic notions of form, notably Aristotelian hylomorphism, Simondon revises this concept through a critical expansion and synthesis of information theory and Gestalt psychology. In his lecture series Imagination and Invention (1965–6) in particular, he develops an account of psycho-biological activity as governed by what he calls ‘images’: relatively autonomous informational sub-systems that serve to regulate the (...) relationship between organism and environment and that constitute the condition for creative action or invention. Focusing on his analysis of the individualization of perceptual objects, the article goes on to show that ‘forms’ for Simondon feature as emergent properties of quantum thresholds of ‘information’ within these systems. It also argues that such a conception offers a more promising alternative to both idealist philosophies of perception and materialist interpretations of deconstruction. (shrink)

The visual control of action is a critical ability for interacting with the visual environment. Visual perception, however, is necessary for recognizing and memorizing different aspects of this environment. According to an influential proposal by Goodale and Milner, these two distinct visual functions are mediated by different cortical areas. The ventral visual stream mediates perception and the dorsal stream mediates the visual control of action. In this review, we focus on behavioral evidence looking at potential differences in the principles governing (...) visual organization for perception and action. We propose that, unlike visual perception, which is largely governed by relational and Gestalt representations of objects, visually-guided action treats objects in a more analytic fashion. We review evidence from visual illusions, studies of object–shape perception, and psychophysical studies of visual resolution of size to support this idea. We conclude that the visual perception of objects and their relations tends to be holistic and contextual in nature, whereas the visual control of skilled actions is more analytical, circumscribed, and tuned to the real metrics of the visual environment. (shrink)

Does perceptual experience consist of a single, well-ordered timeline? Many seem to assume that it does, so that for each event, we can report whether it was before, after, or simultaneous with any other event. Few have addressed the issue head on. In addition to reviewing the little available literature on this foundational topic, this chapter goes on to discuss various findings in temporal order judgments and related tasks. From these findings, some have concluded that the brain actively reconstructs the (...) exact timing of visual, auditory, and tactile events based on factors such as perceived distance and the longer travel time of sound compared to light. But this literature is not conclusive. Results reported in older, rather neglected literature suggest that rather than perceived timing being the result of sophisticated temporal reconstruction, perceived timing is often a byproduct of Gestalt-like grouping principles. (shrink)

Summary Daniel N. Stern’s research on the first years of life offers the view of an active newborn, developing in a continuous dialogue with the Other. The mother places the infant feelings at the center of her attention. The infant gets in tune with the mother, and learns that she welcomes and understands his inner states. Such attunement is a primary holistic experience, taking place because of the infant innate ability to perceive the “interpersonal happenings” as a unitary Gestalt, (...) emerging “from the theoretically separate experiences of movement, force, time, space and intention”. Large convergence exists between Daniel Stern’s developmental psychology and Gestalt theory: both view the infant development occurring within an inter-subjective matrix, not as a process with phases or stages, but rather as a progressive organization of structures. (shrink)

Two seminal articles by a founder of the Gestalt school of psychology, newly translated and accompanied by essays that connect his work to current research.

One hundred years after Gestalt views first took hold our understanding of how perceptual processes organize the visual field into objects and their local backgrounds has progressed substantially. We now know that in addition to the image-based properties that the Gestalt psychologists identified as relevant, a myriad of other image-based factors influence figure–ground organization, as do subjective factors such as past experience, attention, and intentions. Moreover, properties of grounds as well as properties of figures play a role. (...) The recent use of indirect measures and brain imaging techniques has revealed that there is much more processing of the regions ultimately perceived as grounds than is supposed in traditional approaches, and that competition and feedback are involved in figure–ground organization. These recent advances offer great promise for uncovering the mechanisms that organize the visual field into figures and grounds. (shrink)

There are few articles in science that remain relevant over a span of 100 years; Max Wertheimer's pioneering experimental studies on apparent motion and figural organization are notable exceptions. Wertheimer's 1912 account of motion perception started a revolution and established the Gestalt school of psychology. It also paved the way for further investigations of apparent motion perception, including subsequent research by Oliver Braddick, Stuart Anstis, Vilaynur Ramachandran, and others. Wertheimer's 1923 article on figural organization helped define grouping (...) as a principle of figure-ground perception. This book provides contemporary readers and researchers with Wertheimer's two pivotal articles, newly translated into English and each accompanied by a synopsis, and two essays on apparent motion and figural organization that describe the long-term impact of Wertheimer's work. The translation of the original German into readable English prose allows English-language readers for the first time to appreciate Wertheimer's visionary ideas. The accompanying essays tie Wertheimer's phenomenological descriptions to the underlying neuronal mechanisms, bridging the years between the articles' first publication and modern research. (shrink)

Due to a widespread belief in mechano-reductionism, most intellectuals reject the idea that nonconscious living beings act toward goals. Proposing otherwise is mostly rejected as unscientific anthropomorphizing or necessitating appeals to a supernatural power. This false dichotomy has stymied biology and its related sciences. Herein, I present a new naturalistic gestalt on the nature of life—one based on facts and evidence. It incorporates Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s and Arthur Koestler’s theories of systems and hierarchies with the ideas of Aristotle, Hans (...) Jonas, and Ayn Rand, to identify fundamental formulations on the nature of life, consciousness, free will, and meaning. (shrink)

Ernst Mach, le célèbre physicien autrichien, est principalement connu en épistémologie et en philosophie de la psychologie pour avoir été l’auteur d’une théorie de l’expérience sensible qui le positionna, aux côtés de William James, comme l’un des représentants de ce courant philosophique connu sous le nom de « monisme neutre ». L’un des développements les plus fructueux de cette théorie de l’expérience semble avoir été la psychologie de la forme, tant dans la version qu’en a livrée l’École de Graz que (...) l’École de Berlin. Or, le concept de Gestalt est en contradiction fagrante avec la théorie moniste défendue par Mach. Si, comme il le soutient, l’expérience est reconductible à une série d’éléments, et à eux seuls, elle ne peut alors ni supporter unmode de structuration interne, qui présiderait à l’organisation de l’ensemble articulé de ses parties élémentaires, ni manifester, comme en supplément d’elle-même, un élément qui viendrait se surajouter aux éléments sensibles qui la constituent. Toute psychologie de la forme est dualiste dans son principe car elle présuppose que l’expérience ne se sufft pas d’une seule catégorie de constituants sensibles. Ce paradoxe doctrinal relevé, quel statut est-il dès lors permis d’accorder à la théorie de l’expérience élaborée par Mach dans la généalogie de la Gestaltpsychologie ? -/- Mon intention dans cette étude est de défendre la thèse que, loin de s’exclure, le projet d’une analyse des sensations et la notion de Gestalt se complètent dans la théorie de l’expérience développée par Mach. Je soutiendrai l’idée que l’on retrouve chez Mach une conception de l’expérience sensible selon laquelle la perception s’oriente dans le fux des sensations grâce à un processus de reconnaissance d’entités « unes et indivisibles », que l’on pourrait considérer comme des entités de nature fgurale. Selon cette ligne interprétative, la notion de Gestalt constitue l’un des développements nécessaires de la théorie des sensations proposée par Mach. Mais nous verrons cependant en quoi l’approche de Mach se distingue des approches canoniques du concept de Gestalt. (shrink)

Es ist klar, dass jede Gemeinschaft bereits Organisation ist und der Mensch ist, ob er will oder nicht, Glied einer Gesellschaft und leistet in ihr Dienste. Jedoch: wenn ein Volk sich die Organisation seines Kollektivlebens als Hauptaufgabe stellt, so tut es das um den Preis der Individualität seiner Mitglieder. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Organisation im Allgemeinen das individuelle Leben der Menschen ausschaltet; man verlangt von dem Menschen, dass er aufhört, Individuum zu sein. Organisation entmenschlicht in gewissem Sinne den Menschen; (...) das Amt ist eine Rolle, eine "Maske". Der Verfasser erörtert dann das schwere Problem der Gegenwart: ob oder in welchem Masse das Kollektive menschlich ist und ob Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft, Staat allzu abstrakte Dinge sind, als dass wir sie jederzeit gegenwärtig haben könnten. Er behandelt ferner die Frage: ist eine 'Gemeinschaft' von Individuen nicht eine Gemeinschaft von 'Individuen', das heisst von Menschen, individuellen Existenzen? Und wenn diese herunterkommen, ist es nicht klar, dass dann auch die Gemeinschaft herunterkommt? Die bis jetzt ziemlich romantische Frage, ob man sich für die kollektivistischen oder für die individualistischen Theorien zu entscheiden gedenkt, nimmt so eine neue und und spannende Gestalt an, ob nämlich die gegenwärtigen Gesellschaften nicht an sich von kollektiver Verfassung sind und, ihrer eigenen Schwerkraft überlassen, das persönliche Leben schliesslich ersticken und zu menschlichen Ameisenhaufen werden lassen müssen. Im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts machte man den Versuch einer Analyse der Gesellschaft und begann ein Buch unter dem Titel 'Soziologie; aber es kam nicht über die ersten Zeilen hinaus; wahrscheinlich glich die neue Wissenschaft nicht genügend der Physik. Und dank diesem Umstand befinden wir uns heute in einer Lage in der es von höchster Dringlichkeit wäre, klare Vorstellungen davon zu haben, was das Soziale oder was ein Kollektivum ist und in welcher Beziehung es zu dem Menschen steht. Ortega y Gasset schlägt schliesslich eine Rundfrage vor um mit aller Strenge die Vorstellungen festzustellen zu suchen, welche die einflussreichsten Männer des Erdballes mit Vokabeln wie 'Gesellschaft', 'Kollektivität', 'Masse', 'Brauch', 'öffentliche Meinung', 'menschliches Individuum', 'Revolution', 'Staat' u.s.w. verbinden. Das Ergebnis wäre niederschmetternd, besonders wenn man die urweltliche Grobheit dieser Ideen dann mit der Präzision der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung vergleicht. Die wirtschaftliche Krise hat ausserdem die Unzulänglichkeit der Nationalökonomie blossgelegt. Der Verfasser vermutet, die Mangelhaftigkeit der herkömmlichen Wirtschaftslehre möchte vielleicht daher rühren, dass sie eine soziale Spezialwissenschaft ist, deren Fundamente in der Luft hängen, solange es keine soziologische Grundwissenschaft gibt; genau wie keine gute Optik oder Akustik möglich ist, wenn man keine gute Mechanik hat. (shrink)

Already in the romantic it has been assumed, that there is an existential interrelation between nature, human being and mind. According to this idea, there is a narrow interrelation of creation between literature, science, dream and reality, which should be expressed in a progressive universal poetry. Gestalt theory and the concept of autopoiesis, developed by Maturana and Varela, could be regarded as a scientific enhancement of this approach and are united in that sense. By analyses of dreams, it becomes (...) evident, that neurobiological and mental processes are determined by the same principles of self-constitution and gestalt production. They are attending in equal measures to homeostatic conditions. The interaction of living systems with their environment as well as their evolution base on recursive reorganisation. Following this principle, imagination, speech and self-reflection are developed. The observer comes to existence by his own distinctions. Phenomenal appearance and real existence, poetry and scientific findings are results of the autopoietic organisation of living, of which we form a part. (shrink)

An emotional episode consists of psychological, physiological, motor and expressive components that are tied together. Present theories and previous contributions by gestalt theorists to emotions are discussed. It is shown that the synergetic system theory represents a fruitful model for emotional processes, in which self-organisation plays a central role. Also, a selection of neuropsychological findings in this context is taken into account.

Segmentalized consciousness in schizophrenia reflects a loss of the normal Gestalt organization and contextualization of perception. Grays model explains such segmentalization in terms of septohippocampal dysfunction, which is consistent with known neuropsychological impairment in schizophrenia. However, other considerations suggest that everyday perception and its failure in schizophrenia also involve prefrontal executive mechanisms, which are only minimally elaborated by Gray.

Die Vorlage eines Planes zur Neugestaltung des deutschen Schulwesens ist ein Vorgang von öffentlicher Bedeutung, wenngleich er sich zunächst innerhalb eines Verbandes, hinter den Mauern einer berufsständischen Organisation abspielt. Denn was von der Planung betroffen wird, ist die empfindlichste Institution der heutigen Gesellschaft, sozusagen ihr neuralgischer Punkt. Zu allen Zeiten ist die Gestalt der Schule ein aufschlussreiches Symptom für das Verhältnis von Kultur und Politik; Herrschaftsformen und Bildungswelten finden im Schulsystem ihren Ausdruck und vor allem ihre Selbsterhaltung in der (...) Abfolge der menschlichen Generationen. (shrink)

The general question of this theoretical reflection concerns the impact of the multi-level organisation of policy processes for the division of power between collective social actors. Firstly, We deal with the shrinking of the political capacity in the contemporary era of postfordism and deterritorialisation. In this framework, attention is paid to the ideological significance of governance.Using the concept of 'jumping of scales', We then consider the different consequences of the sui generis European multi-level setting for organised labour and capital, which (...) serves as a case-study for our general proposition. Multi-level governance is looked upon as a new gestalt of scales, which enables some actors and hinders others to build their own jumping strategy between the different levels. The conclusion is that the European multi-level setting is the result of, as well as, the platform for power relations. (shrink)

This paper examines the claims of the Gestalt psychologists that there was a crisis in experimental psychology ca. 1900, which arose because the prevailing sensory atomism excluded meaning from among psychological phenomena. The Gestaltists claim that a primary motivation of their movement was to show, against the speculative psychologists and philosophers and Verstehen historians, that natural scientific psychology can handle meaning. Purportedly, they revealed this motivation in their initial German-language presentations but in English emphasized their scientific accomplishments for an (...) American audience. The paper finds that: there was a recognized crisis in the new experimental psychology ca. 1900 pertaining especially to sensory atomism; that the Gestaltists responded to the crisis with new experimental findings and theoretical concepts that challenged atomism; in both languages, they raised problems of meaning and discussed the contest with speculative psychology and philosophy only after presenting their scientific case; that they introduced phenomenological observations on meaning and perceptual organization into their psychology but did not develop a theory of meaning or solve philosophical problems; that they argued ‘‘philosophically,’’ that is, using abstract, conceptual arguments; and that this aspect of their cognitive style was not received well by some prominent members of their American audience. (shrink)

The concept of locally specialized functions dominates research on higher brain function and its disorders. Locally specialized functions must be complemented by processes that coordinate those functions, however, and impairment of coordinating processes may be central to some psychotic conditions. Evidence for processes that coordinate activity is provided by neurobiological and psychological studies of contextual disambiguation and dynamic grouping. Mechanisms by which this important class of cognitive functions could be achieved include those long-range connections within and between cortical regions that (...) activate synaptic channels via NMDA-receptors, and which control gain through their voltage-dependent mode of operation. An impairment of these mechanisms is central to PCP-psychosis, and the cognitive capabilities that they could provide are impaired in some forms of schizophrenia. We conclude that impaired cognitive coordination due to reduced ion flow through NMDA-channels is involved in schizophrenia, and we suggest that it may also be involved in other disorders. This perspective suggests several ways in which further research could enhance our understanding of cognitive coordination, its neural basis, and its relevance to psychopathology. Key Words: attention; cerebral cortex; cognitive coordination; cognitive neuropsychiatry; cognitive neuropsychology; context disorganization; Gamma rhythms; Gestalt theory; glutamate; grouping; memory; NMDA-receptors; PCP-psychosis; perceptual organization; schizophrenia. (shrink)

Es ist klar, dass jede Gemeinschaft bereits Organisation ist und der Mensch ist, ob er will oder nicht, Glied einer Gesellschaft und leistet in ihr Dienste. Jedoch: wenn ein Volk sich die Organisation seines Kollektivlebens als Hauptaufgabe stellt, so tut es das um den Preis der Individualität seiner Mitglieder. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Organisation im Allgemeinen das individuelle Leben der Menschen ausschaltet; man verlangt von dem Menschen, dass er aufhört, Individuum zu sein. Organisation entmenschlicht in gewissem Sinne den Menschen; (...) das Amt ist eine Rolle, eine "Maske". Der Verfasser erörtert dann das schwere Problem der Gegenwart: ob oder in welchem Masse das Kollektive menschlich ist und ob Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft, Staat allzu abstrakte Dinge sind, als dass wir sie jederzeit gegenwärtig haben könnten. Er behandelt ferner die Frage: ist eine 'Gemeinschaft' von Individuen nicht eine Gemeinschaft von 'Individuen', das heisst von Menschen, individuellen Existenzen? Und wenn diese herunterkommen, ist es nicht klar, dass dann auch die Gemeinschaft herunterkommt? Die bis jetzt ziemlich romantische Frage, ob man sich für die kollektivistischen oder für die individualistischen Theorien zu entscheiden gedenkt, nimmt so eine neue und und spannende Gestalt an, ob nämlich die gegenwärtigen Gesellschaften nicht an sich von kollektiver Verfassung sind und, ihrer eigenen Schwerkraft überlassen, das persönliche Leben schliesslich ersticken und zu menschlichen Ameisenhaufen werden lassen müssen. Im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts machte man den Versuch einer Analyse der Gesellschaft und begann ein Buch unter dem Titel 'Soziologie; aber es kam nicht über die ersten Zeilen hinaus; wahrscheinlich glich die neue Wissenschaft nicht genügend der Physik. Und dank diesem Umstand befinden wir uns heute in einer Lage in der es von höchster Dringlichkeit wäre, klare Vorstellungen davon zu haben, was das Soziale oder was ein Kollektivum ist und in welcher Beziehung es zu dem Menschen steht. Ortega y Gasset schlägt schliesslich eine Rundfrage vor um mit aller Strenge die Vorstellungen festzustellen zu suchen, welche die einflussreichsten Männer des Erdballes mit Vokabeln wie 'Gesellschaft', 'Kollektivität', 'Masse', 'Brauch', 'öffentliche Meinung', 'menschliches Individuum', 'Revolution', 'Staat' u.s.w. verbinden. Das Ergebnis wäre niederschmetternd, besonders wenn man die urweltliche Grobheit dieser Ideen dann mit der Präzision der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung vergleicht. Die wirtschaftliche Krise hat ausserdem die Unzulänglichkeit der Nationalökonomie blossgelegt. Der Verfasser vermutet, die Mangelhaftigkeit der herkömmlichen Wirtschaftslehre möchte vielleicht daher rühren, dass sie eine soziale Spezialwissenschaft ist, deren Fundamente in der Luft hängen, solange es keine soziologische Grundwissenschaft gibt; genau wie keine gute Optik oder Akustik möglich ist, wenn man keine gute Mechanik hat. (shrink)

Info in English (book is in German): The book "Schöpferische Freiheit" ("Creative Freedom") is considered the third major work of Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Metzger (1899-1979) - along with his "Psychology" and the "Laws of Seeing". According to Michael Stadler and Wolfgang Crabus, Metzger's real achievement in the further development of Gestalt theory is expressed in this book: "Metzger develops here, on the basis of Köhler's natural philosophical ideas of 'physical Gestalten' (1920) and incorporating the teachings of Zen Buddhism (...) ... a theory of education for creative thought and action. ... This book perhaps most clearly expresses the ethic of free self-determination of human thought and action inherent in Gestalt theory." "Creative Freedom" has lost none of its relevance since its last edition in 1962. It can be considered a foundational work of a Gestalt theory of the living. Jürgen Kriz writes in his preface to the now new edition: "It is extremely gratifying that this central work not only of Gestalt psychology, but (at least from my point of view) also of humanistic psychology and psychotherapy is being reissued. It is currently available only in (all too few) libraries and single antiquarian copies. Yet the central messages and insights of Wolfgang Metzger's 'Creative Freedom' are more relevant than ever: as a necessary warning against the aberrations of an increasing functionalization, medicalization, and progress-believing optimization (for whatever purposes) of the human being in our time." The new edition is accompanied by comments on the topicality and relevance of the work for education and teaching (Marianne Soff) as well as for psychotherapy (Gerhard Stemberger). Buchinformation: Die „Schöpferische Freiheit“ gilt als das dritte Hauptwerk des Gestaltpsychologen Wolfgang Metzger (1899-1979) – neben seiner „Psychologie“ und den „Gesetzen des Sehens“. Nach Michael Stadler und Wolfgang Crabus kommt in diesem Buch Metzgers eigentliche Leistung der Weiterentwicklung der Gestalttheorie zum Ausdruck: „Metzger entwickelt hier auf der Grundlage von Köhlers naturphilosophischen Ideen der ‚physischen Gestalten‘ (1920) und unter Einbeziehung der Lehren des Zen-Buddhismus … eine Theorie der Erziehung zum schöpferischen Denken und Handeln. … Dieses Buch drückt vielleicht am deutlichsten die der Gestalttheorie inhärente Ethik der freien Selbstbestimmung menschlichen Denkens und Handelns aus.“. (shrink)

Two traditions have had a great impact on the theoretical and experimental research of perception. One tradition is statistical, stretching from Fechner's enunciation of psychophysics in 1860 to the modern view of perception as statistical decision making. The other tradition is phenomenological, from Brentano's “empirical standpoint” of 1874 to the Gestalt movement and the modern work on perceptual organization. Each tradition has at its core a distinctive assumption about the indivisible constituents of perception: the just-noticeable differences of sensation (...) in the tradition of Fechner vs. the phenomenological Gestalts in the tradition of Brentano. But some key results from the two traditions can be explained and connected using an approach that is neither statistical nor phenomenological. This approach rests on a basic property of any information exchange: a principle of measurement formulated in 1946 by Gabor as a part of his quantal theory of information. Here the indivisible components are units (quanta) of information that remain invariant under changes of precision of measurement. This approach helped to understand how sensory measurements are implemented by single neural cells. But recent analyses suggest that this approach has the power to explain larger-scale characteristics of sensory systems. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to stress the importance of the contribution of Gaetano Kanizsato contemporary psychology. His theoretical ideas have in many respects been truly seminal. In particular, are emphasized his distinction between the primary and secondary process, his criticism of the concept ofPrägnanz, and his focus on self-organisation in a dynamic approach. To continue his work, the main task is to identify the rules and constraints that enable us to see the world as it appears. In the last years (...) of his scientific work, his insight was that the non-linear dynamic approach may be the best way to achieve this goal, giving a more sound sense to the intuitions of Gestalt psychologie.Unfortunately, he died before he could reap the fruits of this insight. Here are reviewed the first results that some among his direct and indirect pupils have obtained in this direction. (shrink)

Research on language production has focused on the process of utterance planning and involved studying the synchronization between visual gaze and the production of sentences that refer to objects in the immediate visual environment. However, it remains unclear how the visual grouping of these objects might influence this process. To shed light on this issue, the present research examined the effects of the visual grouping of objects in a visual display on utterance planning in two experiments. Participants produced utterances of (...) the form “The snail and the necklace are above/below/on the left/right side of the toothbrush” for objects containing these referents (e.g., a snail, a necklace and a toothbrush). These objects were grouped using classic Gestalt principles of color similarity (Experiment 1) and common region (Experiment 2) so that the induced perceptual grouping was congruent or incongruent with the required phrasal organization. The results showed that speech onset latencies were shorter in congruent than incongruent conditions. The findings therefore reveal that the congruency between the visual grouping of referents and the required phrasal organization can influence speech production. Such findings suggest that, when language is produced in a visual context, speakers make use of both visual and linguistic cues to plan utterances. (shrink)

The laws and principles which predict how perceptual qualities can be extracted from the most elementary visual signals were discovered by the Gestalt psychologists(e.g., Wertheimer,1923; Metzger,1930, translated and re-editedbySpillmann in 2009 and2012, respectively). Their seminal work has inspired visual science ever since, andhas led to exciting discoveries which have confirmed the Gestalt idea that the human brain would have an astonishing capacity for selecting and combining critical visual signals to generate output representations for decision making and action. This (...) capacity of selection and integration enables the perception of form and space, and the correct estimation of relative positions, trajectories, and distances of objects represented in planar images. This paper addresses problems of perceptual organization with critical implications for visual interfaces, and the design of surgical simulator platforms in particular. (shrink)

A resolution must give “seeing it differently” a sense that makes it clear that it is seeing that one is doing differently and not something else that is going on at the same time. The Berlin school of gestalt psychology took the view that alongside the colors and shapes traditionally thought to compose the visual field was a similarly perceptible aspect of “organization”. Wittgenstein considers the possibility of a physiological explanation of aspect change. This chapter details the Wittgenstein's (...) account that it is worth making three general comments about what explaining a psychological concept involves, according to his later philosophy. It focuses on Wittgenstein's writings on sensory aspects and non-sensory aspects. Kant's proposal was that the intuition is of an a priori manifold; but perhaps what is more plausible is that the objects of synoptic vision are not themselves individuals but concepts. (shrink)

Although symmetry has been discussed in terms of a major law of perceptual organization since the early conceptual efforts of the Gestalt school (Wertheimer, Metzger, Koffka and others), the first quantitative measurements testing for effects of symmetry on processes of Gestalt formation have seen the day only recently. In this study, a psychophysical rating study and a “foreground”-“background” choice response time experiment were run with human observers to test for effects of bilateral symmetry on the perceived strength (...) of figure-ground in triangular Kanizsa configurations. Displays with and without bilateral symmetry, identical physically-specified-to-total contour ratio, and constant local contrast intensity within and across conditions, but variable local contrast polarity and variable orientation in the plane, were presented in a random order to human observers. Configurations with bilateral symmetry produced significantly stronger figure-ground percepts reflected by greater subjective magnitudes and consistently higher percentages of “foreground” judgments accompanied by significantly shorter response times. These effects of symmetry depend neither on the orientation of the axis of symmetry, nor on the contrast polarity of the physical inducers. It is concluded that bilateral symmetry, irrespective of orientation, significantly contributes to the, largely sign-invariant, visual mechanisms of figure-ground segregation that determine the salience of figure-ground in perceptually ambiguous configurations. (shrink)

I argue (1) that what (ontic) New Mechanistic philosophers of science call mechanisms would be material Gestalten, and (2) that Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with Gestalt theory can help us frame a standing challenge against ontic conceptions of mechanisms. In short, until the (ontic) New Mechanist can provide us with a plausible account of the organization of mechanisms as an objective feature of mind-independent ontic structures in the world which we might discover – and no ontic Mechanist has done so (...) – it is more conservative to claim that mechanistic organization is instead a mind-dependent aspect of our epistemic strategies of mechanistic explanation. (shrink)

Lehar's Gestalt Bubble model introduces a computational approach to holistic aspects of three-dimensional scene perception. The model as such has merit because it manages to translate certain Gestalt principles of perceptual organization into formal codes or algorithms. The mistake made in this target article is to present the model within the theoretical framework of the question of consciousness. As a scientific approach to the problem of consciousness, the Gestalt Bubble fails for several reasons. This commentary addresses (...) three of these: (1) the terminology surrounding the concept of consciousness is not rigorously defined; (2) it is not made evident that three-dimensional scene perception requires consciousness at all; and (3) it is not clearly explained by which mechanism(s) the “picture-in-the-head,” supposedly represented in the brain, would be made available to different levels of awareness or consciousness. Footnotes1 After Shakespeare, Macbeth. (shrink)

We understand responsible leadership as a social-relational and ethical phenomenon, which occurs in social processes of interaction. While the prevailing leadership literature has for the most part focussed on the relationship between leaders and followers in the organization and defined followers as subordinates, we show in this article that leadership takes place in interaction with a multitude of followers as stakeholders inside and outside the corporation. Using an ethical lens, we discuss leadership responsibilities in a stakeholder society, thereby following (...) Bass and Steidelmeier’s suggestion to discuss “leadership in the context of contemporary stakeholder theory” (1999: 200). Moreover, from a relational and stakeholder perspective we approach the questions: What is responsible leadership? What makes a responsible leader? What qualities are needed? Finally, we propose a so-called “roles model” of responsible leadership, which gives a gestalt to a responsible leader and describes the different roles he or she takes in leading stakeholders and business in society. (shrink)

While stakeholder theory has traditionally considered organization’s interactions with stakeholders in terms of independent, dyadic relationships, recent scholarship has pointed to the fact that organizations exist within a complex network of intertwining relationships [e.g., Rowley, T. J.: 1997, The Academy of Management Review 22(4), 887–910]. However, further theoretical and empirical development of the interactions between stakeholders has been lacking. In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding and measuring the effects upon the organization of competing, complementary and (...) cooperative stakeholder interactions, which we refer to as stakeholder multiplicity. We draw upon three forms of fit (i.e. fit as matching, fit as moderation, and fit as gestalts; Venkatraman, N.: 1989) to develop a framework for understanding stakeholder multiplicity based upon the direction, strength, and synergies of the interacting claims. Additionally, we draw upon the theory of stakeholder identification and salience of Mitchell et al. (1997), which we argue provides a more relevant and significantly more illustrative explanation of the nature and effects of stakeholder interactions upon the organization than the network approach of Rowley (1997). Furthermore, we ground our framework through reference to three stakeholder groups (i.e. governments, customers, and employees) and the stakeholder issue of concern for the natural environment. We propose a hierarchy of the multiplicity strength of influence of these three stakeholder groups. Potential measurement and implications are discussed. (shrink)

During the 1992–1993 academic year, Harold Garfinkel offered a graduate seminar on Ethnomethodology in the Sociology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles. One topic that was given extensive coverage in the seminar has not been discussed at much length in Garfinkel’s published works to date: Aron Gurwitsch’s treatment of Gestalt theory, and particularly the themes of “phenomenal field” and “praxeological description”. The edited transcript of Garfinkel’s seminar shows why he recommended that “for the serious initiatives of ethnomethodological (...) investigations […] Gurwitsch is a theorist we can’t do without”. Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological “misreading” is not a mistaken reading, but is more a matter of taking Gurwitsch’s phenomenological demonstrations of Gestalt contextures in phenomenal fields and transposing them for making detailed, concrete observations and descriptions of organizationally achieved social phenomena. Where Gurwitsch addresses the organization of perception as an autochthonous achievement, inherent to the stream and field of individual consciousness, Garfinkel extends and elaborates this field into the social world of enacted practices. The April 1993 seminar also is rich with brief asides and digressions in which Garfinkel comments about his use of Alfred Schutz, his attitude toward publishing, his relationship with Erving Goffman, and many other matters. (shrink)

This paper reviews evidence concerning the nature of grouping in music and language and their interactions with other linguistic and musical systems. I present brief typological surveys of the relationship between constituency and acoustic parameters in language and music, drawing from a wide variety of languages and musical genres. The two domains both involve correspondence between auditory discontinuities and group boundaries, reflecting the Gestalt principles of proximity and similarity, as well as a nested, hierarchical organization of constituents. Typically, (...) computational-level theories of musical grouping take the form of a function from acoustic properties through grouping representations to syntactic or interpretive constituents. Linguistic theories tend to be cast as functions in the opposite direction. This study argues that the difference in orientation is not grounded in principled differences in information flow between the two domains, and that reconceptualizing one or both theories allows for gains in analytical understanding. There are also obvious differences between musical and linguistic grouping. Grappling with those differences requires one to think in detail about modularity, information flow, levels of description, and the functional nature of cognitive domains. (shrink)

This chapter presents the philosophical roots of phenomenology, starting from Brentano’s empirical and descriptive psychology based on the key concepts of intentional reference, mental phenomenon, and presentation. Also discussed are the experimental developments of the theory by the Gestalt schools of Berlin and Graz, and their different viewpoints on perceptual organization. Finally outlined is the legacy of the theory in contemporary experimental phenomenology, which highlights the differences between the psychophysical, neurophysiological, and phenomenological analyses of perception. Unpacking the distinctions (...) between the concepts of information, psychical/physical phenomena, reality, whole/part, Gestalt quality, and meaning from a phenomenological viewpoint, the chapter concludes by discussing the quest for a science of psychology per se, able both to describe and to explain phenomena in first person account. (shrink)

The author clarifies the existential philosophy that is implicit in Kurt Goldstein's philosophy of organism (Goldstein, 1963; 1995). Situated in response to the growing trend that psychological phenomena are reducible to the nervous system, the author argues for the reverse: that the significance of nervous system activity can only be understood by viewing it as background to foreground performances. Like the organization of perception into meaningful figure-- ground Gestalts, the existential modes of embodiment, sociality, temporality, spatiality, and attunement are (...) organized together to accomplish foreground performances. It is only within this context that the activity of the nervous system may be understood as significant or insignificant. Speech is given as an example. The article concludes with a commentary on how the trend of reducing psychological phenomena to neurological phenomena has impaired our understanding of brain disorders and psychological disorders. (shrink)

Surely since the Enlightenment, if not before, the study of mind has centered principally on how man achieves a “true” knowledge of the world. Emphasis in this pursuit has varied, of course: empiricists have concentrated on the mind’s interplay with an external world of nature, hoping to find the key in the association of sensations and ideas, while rationalists have looked inward to the powers of mind itself for the principles of right reason. The objective, in either case, has been (...) to discover how we achieve “reality,” that is to say, how we get a reliable fix on the world, a world that is, as it were, assumed to be immutable and, as it were, “there to be observed.”This quest has, of course, had a profound effect on the development of psychology, and the empiricist and rationalist traditions have dominated our conceptions of how the mind grows and how it gets its grasp on the “real world.” Indeed, at midcentury Gestalt theory represented the rationalist wing of this enterprise and American learning theory the empiricist. Both gave accounts of mental development as proceeding in some more or less linear and uniform fashion from an initial incompetence in grasping reality to a final competence, in one case attributing it to the work out of internal processes or mental organization, and in the other to some unspecified principle of reflection by which—whether through reinforcement, association, or conditioning—we came to respond to the world “as it is.” There have always been dissidents who challenged these views, but conjectures about human mental development have been influenced far more by majoritarian rationalism and empiricism than by these dissident voices. Jerome Bruner is research professor of psychology at New York University, where he is also serving as Meyer Visiting Professor of Law. His most recent book, Acts of Meaning, appeared in 1990. In 1987 he received the Balzan Prize for “a lifetime contribution to the study of human psychology.”. (shrink)