FIELD THEORY OF PSYCHOLOGY Field Theory of Psychology

Gestalt psychology was a reaction against structuralism and behaviorism. Kohler and Koffka were leading Gestaltists who stated that experience and behavior cannot be analyzed into elements of consciousness and they cannot be broken down to stimulus-response units. Gestaltists believed that behavior and experience are wholes that are unanalyzable, and certain relationships between the whole and its parts can be understood. Gestalt experiments included perception, learning, and thinking (Sargent & Stafford, 1965, p. 4).

Gestalt psychologists viewed sensory elements as appearing after introspection. Real data of experience were organized and extended wholes and specific elements are not encountered in consciousness or behavior. Sensory data is found in an orderly arrangement such that a young child could respond without previous learning. Adults are viewed as reacting to the pattern or total organization of the objects around them; these Gestalten or configurations are the mental elements. Gestalt psychology is the study of this organization of unitary experiences, how they exist and change, and factors involved (Garrett, 1951, pp. 63-64).

The term field theory now refers to

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if one is reactivated so is the other (Henle, 1971, pp. 117-118). Kohler related the mental to the physical and theorized that physical systems have Gestalt properties; this offered a transition from psychological to physical systems. The brain process and the perceived object correspond and they are Gestalten. For the principle of isomorphism, the form of the mental event was viewed as the same as the form of the physical. The correspondence between the brain processes and the experienced consciousness is not the relation of an object to a mirror image, rather it is topological (Watson, 1971, pp. 458-459). Gestaltists deny that perception is based only in terms of past experience. Stimuli are viewed as having form, pattern, and meaning with their elements organized. Kohler presents the example of a person born blind who acquires sight; geometrical forms are not recognized but questions regarding form, are. This demonstrates that organizations and arrangements of the visual field exist without a stimulus situation tagged with verbal symbols (Garrett, 1951, pp. 64-65). Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) developed Field theory. His work was based on Gestalt orientation but extended beyond its framework. While Gestalt psychologists fo
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