Gestalt Psychology

2. Activity
Examine the ff. pictures.
What word do you see?

3. Objectives:
Describe the different gestalt principles.
List ways of applying gestalt psychology in
teaching-learning process.
Demonstrate appreciation of the usefulness of
gestalt principles in the teaching-learning process.

4. Gestalt Psychology
Gestalt Principles Insight Learning Life space (Lewin)
Law of Proximity
Law of Closure
Law of Good
Continuation
Law of Good
Pragnanz
Law of
Figure/Ground
Inner Forces
Outer Forces

5. Gestalt psychology- was at the forefront of the
cognitive psychology. It served as the
foundation of the cognitive perspective to
learning. It opposed the external and
mechanistic focus of behaviorism. It considered
the mental processes and products of perception

6. The term Gestalt means “form” or “configuration”.
Psychologist Max Wertheimer,Wolfgang Kohler
and Kurt Koffka studied perception and concluded
that perceivers are not passive, but rather active.

7. They suggested that learners do not just collect
information as is but they actively process and
restructure data in order to understand it. This is
the perceptual process and certain factors
impact on this perceptual process.

8. Gestalt Principles
Law of Proximity
•Elements that are close together will be
perceived as a coherent object.

9. Law of Similarity
•Elements that look similar will be perceived as part of
the same form.

10. Law of Closure
•We tend to fill the gaps or “close” the figures we
perceive. We enclose a space by completing a contour
and ignoring gaps in the figure.

11. Law of Good Continuation
•Individuals have the tendency to continue contours
whenever the elements or the pattern establish an implied
direction. People tend to draw a good continuation line.

12. Law of Good Pragnanz
•The stimulus will be organized into as good a figure as
possible.

13. Law of Figure/Ground
•We tend to pay attention and perceive things in the
foreground first. A stimulus will be perceived as
separate from its ground.

16. Insight Learning
•Gestalt Psychology adheres to the idea of learning
taking place by discovery or insight. The idea of
insight learning was first developed by Kohler in
which he described experiments with the apes.
•Apes could used boxers and sticks as tools to solve
problem.
•In the box, a banana is attached to the top of a
chimpanzee’s cage. The banana is out of the reach but
can be reached by climbing on or jumping from a box.

17. Chica on the jumping stick Grande on an insecure
construction

18. Sultan making a double stick

19. •Only one Kohler’s ape (Sultan) could solve this problems.
•A much more difficult problem which involved the
stocking of boxes. This problem require the ape to stack on
box on another, and master gravitational problems by
building a stable stack.
•Sultan, Kohler’s very intelligent ape, was able to master a
two-stick problem by inserting one stick into the end of the
other in order to reach the food.

20. In each of the problems, the important aspect of
learning was not reinforcement, but the coordination
of thinking aspect of learning was not reinforcement,
but the coordination of thinking to create new
organization. Kohler referred to this as insight or
discovery of learning.

21. Gestalt Principles and the Teaching Learning-Process
• The six gestalt principles not only influence
perception but they also impact on learning.
• Kurt Lewin’s theory focusing on “life space” adhered
to gestalt psychology.
• He said that individual has inner and outer voice.

22. Inner forces- include his own motivation, attitudes
and feelings.
Outer forces- include the attitude and behavior of
teacher and classmates.

23. Mario Polito- an Italian psychologist, writes about
the relevance of gestalt psychology to education.

24. Thank You