Wolfgang Kohler was born in 1887 in Estonia. His inspiration for becoming a natural scientist came largely from a teacher who was a physicist and mathematician of international reputation. Kohler learned from Stumpf, to deal with facts that phenomenological observation yielded. Kohler joined Wertheimer and Koffka, also taught by Stumpf, and together they created something new, Gestalt Psychology (Ash, 1995, pp. 111-117). This research paper discuses Gestalt Psychology and its meaning, the theory, educational implications and applications of Kohler's theory.
Gestalt psychology was a reaction against structuralism and behaviorism. Kohler and Koffka were the leading Gestaltists; they stated that experience and behavior can't be analyzed into elements of consciousness (structuralism) and they cannot be broken down to stimulus-response units (behavioralism)
meaning. Gestaltists believed that behavior and experience are wholes that are unanalyzable. Certain relationships between the whole and its parts can be understood. Gestalt experiments regard perception, learning, and thinking (Sargent & Stafford, 1965, p. 4).
Gestalt psychologists view sensory elements as appearing after introspection. Real data of experience are organized and extended wholes and specific elements are not encountered in consciousness or behavior. An orderly arrangement in sensory data is found and even a young child can respond without previous learning. Adults react to the pattern or total organization of the objects around them. These configurations (Gestalten) are the mental elements. Gestalt psychology studies this organization of unitary experiences (how they exist, change, and factors involved) (Garrett, 1951, pp. 63-64).
Wertheimer explained his experiment on phi phenomenon to Kohler and Koffka in 1911. Within this phenomenon, subjects perceived a whole or Gestalt and not the isolated elements. Gestaltists state that what takes pla...