Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967)
Wolfgang Köhler was the herald of the Gestalt psychology movement. His books, written with amazing care and precision, gave a classic insight into many aspects of this scientific movement. Köhler's studies in physics, which he studied with Max Planck, convinced him that this science should be connected with psychology and that gestalts (forms or structures) are found in psychology as well as in physics.
Köhler was born in Estonia. When he was five years old, his family moved to northern Germany. He received his education at the universities of Tübingen, Bonn and Berlin, where in 1909 he defended his doctoral dissertation with Karl Stumpf. He then went to the University of Frankfurt, where he arrived shortly before Wrstheimer arrived there with his toy strobe light.
In 1913, at the suggestion of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Köhler traveled to the Canary Islands, located off the northwestern coast of Africa, where he began studying the behavior of chimpanzees on the island of Tenerife. Six months after his arrival in the Canaries, the first World War, and, as Köhler reported, he could not return to his homeland, although the rest of the Germans living there succeeded. Based on interpretations of recent historical data, one psychologist suggested that Köhler may have been spying for Germany and that the scientific equipment in his laboratory served only as a cover for intelligence activities. This claim was based on the fact that Köhler hid a powerful radio transmitter in the attic of his house, which he allegedly used to transmit information about the movements of Allied ships. However, there is no direct evidence to support this version; moreover, it was subsequently refuted by historians and specialists in Gestalt psychology.
But be that as it may, as a spy or as a scientist detained by the war, Köhler lived on the island for seven years, studying the behavior of chimpanzees. There he wrote a now classic book entitled Intelligence of Apes (Intelligenzprufungen an Menschenaffen), the second edition of which was published in 1924 and was translated into English and French.
In 1920, Köhler returned to Germany and two years later replaced Stumpf as professor of psychology at the University of Berlin, where he worked until 1935. The undoubted reason for this prestigious appointment was the publication of the book “Physical gestalts at rest and in a stationary state” (Die physischen geschtalten in Ruhe und im staHonaren Zusfand, 1920), which attracted the attention of specialists with its high scientific level.
In his mid-twenties, Koehler had serious problems in his personal life. He divorced his wife and married a young Swedish student, after which he was deprived of contact with his four children from his first marriage. As a result of the nervous shocks he had experienced, his hands began to tremble, which became especially noticeable in moments of excitement. To assess their boss's mood, laboratory staff carefully monitored the twitching of his fingers every morning.
In 1925/26 academic year Koehler lectured at Harvard University and Clark University, where, in addition to his academic duties, he taught tango to graduate students. In 1929, he published the book “Gestalt Psychology,” which most fully reflected the views of the new direction.
He left Germany in 1933 due to conflict with the new regime. One day, after he dared to openly criticize the fascist government at his lecture, a gang of Nazis burst into his audience. Köhler later wrote a fearless letter to a Berlin newspaper, expressing his outrage at the expulsion of Jewish professors from German universities. On the evening of the day when the letter was published, Köhler and several friends were waiting at home for the Gestapo to appear. However, they did not touch him and gave him the opportunity to go abroad.
After emigrating to the United States, Koehler taught at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, wrote several books, and edited the journal Psychological Research. In 1956, he was awarded the Distinguished Contribution to Science Award from the American Psychological Association, and shortly thereafter was elected its president.
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Wolfgang Köhler born on January 21, 1887 in Estonia, in Reval (Tallinn), in the family of a school director and a housewife. His childhood was spent in Germany. He also began studying at one of the German schools. Köhler received an excellent education at the universities of Tübingen, Bonn and Berlin. In 1909, when Wolfgang was 22 years old, he received a PhD in psychology from the University of Berlin and headed the Institute of Psychology in Berlin until 1935. Start scientific activity Köhler also falls on 1909. In the period from 1913 to 1920, Wolfgang Köhler from the Prussian Academy of Sciences headed research work to study the behavior of great apes on the island of Tenerife. At the end of his observations, Wolfgang wrote the book “A Study of the Intelligence of Apes” (1917). In 1922, after a series of brilliant experiments on chimpanzee perception and intelligence that brought international recognition to Wolfgang Köhler, he was appointed director of the Institute of Psychology at the University of Berlin. At this institute, Köhler continued research based on the Gestalt theory and in 1929 published the work “Gestalt Psychology” - a manifesto of the school of Gestalt psychology, which he created together with Kurt Koffka and. In 1938, Koehler wrote the book “The Role of Values in the World of Facts.” In 1935, Koehler resigned in protest against Nazi interference in the affairs of the university and emigrated to the United States. In 1955 he became a member of the Institute advanced research at Princeton University, and in 1958 - professor of psychology at Dartmouth College. Koehler died in Enfield (New Hampshire) on June 11, 1967.
Basic principles of Wolfgang Köhler's theory
Köhler's first works devoted to the study of chimpanzee intelligence led him to his most significant discovery - the discovery of insight. Based on the fact that intellectual behavior is aimed at solving a problem, Koehler created situations in which the experimental animal had to find workarounds to achieve the goal. The operations that the monkeys performed to solve the problem were called two-phase, since they consisted of two parts. In the first part, the monkey had to use one tool to get another, which was necessary to solve the problem (for example, using a short stick that was in a cage, get a long one located at some distance from the cage). In the second part, the resulting tool was used to achieve the desired goal, for example, to obtain a banana located far from the monkey.
The experiment was supposed to help understand how the problem is solved - whether a blind search occurs the right decision(by trial and error) or the monkey achieves the goal thanks to a spontaneous grasp of relationships, understanding. Köhler's experiments proved that the thought process follows the second path, i.e. there is an instant grasp of the situation and the correct solution to the task. Explaining the phenomenon of insight, he argued that the moment phenomena enter another situation, they acquire a new function. The combination of objects in new combinations associated with their new functions leads to the formation of a new gestalt, the awareness of which is the essence of thinking.
Köhler conducted a series of experiments to study the thinking process in children. He presented the children with a problem situation similar to the one presented to the monkeys, for example, they were asked to get a typewriter that was located high on a cabinet. To achieve the goal, the children included a ladder in the gestalt with a closet; if there was no ladder, other objects were used: drawers, a table with a chair.
Köhler believed that mental development is associated with the transition from grasping a general situation to its differentiation and the formation of a new, more adequate gestalt to the situation. Köhler's experiments proved the instantaneous, rather than extended in time, nature of thinking, which is based on insight.
Kohler, 1887-1967) -German-American. psychologist, one of the founders of Gestalt psychology. In the 1910s, while working at the anthropoid station of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (on the island of Tenerife), he studied thinking in chimpanzees and concluded that the understanding of animal thinking in behaviorism as solving problems through blind trial and error was inconsistent (see Trial and error method) and about the presence of intellectual (productive) behavior in apes (in some cases and in animals at an earlier phylogenetic stage). Having analyzed the conditions for monkeys to solve productive problems, he concluded that such a solution should be based on the formation of a “good gestalt” in the animal’s visual field (see Insight).
Later, while dealing with general psychological issues, he came to the conclusion that there are integral structures (gestalts) not only in consciousness, but also in physiology and the physical world, and therefore, when solving a psychophysiological problem, he shared the concept of anti-localizationism. K.'s ideas about the existence of a fundamental commonality in the structure of integral structures in various spheres of reality played a certain role in the development of a systems approach in psychology. Having emigrated to the USA (1935), K. continued research “on the problem of the electrophysiological basis of the formation of gestalts in consciousness. He was awarded the award “For Outstanding Contribution to Science” by the American Psychological Association (1956), and was the president of this association. (E. E. Sokolov.)
KÖHLER Wolfgang
(1887-1967) - German-American psychologist, one of the leaders of Gestalt psychology. Specialist in the field of general and experimental psychology, psychophysiology and comparative psychology, philosophy of psychology and theoretical psychology. In the USA, from 1935 to 1958, K. was a professor at Swathmore College. He was elected President of the APA (1958), honorary doctor of many universities, a member of the American Academy of Sciences and Arts, the National Academy of Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Received the APA Award for Outstanding Scientific Contribution (1957). He received his education at the University of Berlin (1909, Doctor of Philosophy). He began his professional career by working at a scientific station for the study of anthropoids (1913-1920, Canary Islands), where he experimentally proved in experiments on animals the role of insight as a principle of organizing behavior. (The mentality of apes, 1917, 1925). His experiments with an ape named Sultan, which had to connect two poles to get a banana, are well known. This experiment formed the basis for K.'s idea of insight in learning, i.e. unexpected awareness of the necessary relationships. Working with animals, K. showed that they are capable of perceiving relationships, responding to the larger or brighter of two stimuli and rejecting even the stimulus for which they were trained. In Gestalt psychology, this phenomenon was called the law of transposition and was used when behaviorism was criticized for preferring single stimuli and neglecting the molar aspects of stimulus situations. Describing his experiences with animals from a gestalt perspective, K. Special attention drew attention to the formation of unexpected connections in rational and mental processes (Aha! - a phenomenon), where learning plays a minimal role and the perceptual nature of problem solving is especially clearly manifested. During his student years he was greatly influenced by the ideas of Max Planck and always believed that physics would ultimately explain biological processes, and biology, in turn, would provide answers to questions in psychology. Studying acoustic and visual perception and illusions, K. discovered some regularities and, on their basis, postulated the existence of neural fields of the brain responsible for various phenomena of perception (Gestalt Psychology, 1929, 1947). He refined Wertheimer's concept of psychophysical isomorphism, arguing for the existence of macroscopic zonal processes in which nerve impulses originating at one point in the brain spread distally. These psychochemical features of the nervous tissue, according to K., form the organic correlates of such Gestalt concepts as grouping, segregation, accuracy and closure. Grouping describes the perception of objects that are close to each other in the visual field, which are perceived as groups of objects, rather than as a number of unrelated objects. Precision is another Gestalt principle, which states that perception occurs in relation to the form that is most recognizable under the circumstances. Closure describes the tendency to perceive an incomplete figure as complete, for example, an open circle as a whole. K. had a great influence on the scientists of his time. He was one of the founders and editors of the journal Psychologische Forschung. In 1920 he headed the psychological laboratory of the University of Berlin; in 1921 received the title of professor at the University of Göttingen; from 1922 to 1935 he headed the department of psychology at the University of Berlin. Putting his life in danger, for several years he resisted the Nazis, who threatened to close his Psychological Institute at the University of Berlin. In 1935, K. emigrated to the USA, where he worked for more than 30 years. His further works were published there: The Place of Value in a World of Facts, 1938; The present situation in brain physiology / American Psychologist, 13, 1958; Unsolved problems in the field of figurative after-effects / Psychological Record, 15, 1965; The Task of Gestalt Psychology (1969). By the end of his life he received recognition in his homeland. In 1965, K. received the title of Honorary Resident of Berlin; in 1967 he was elected honorary president of the German Psychological Society. In Russian lane published: Study of the intelligence of anthropoid apes, M., 1930; republished in the Reader on General Psychology. Psychology of thinking, M., Moscow State University, 1981. L.A. Karpenko
(Wolfgang Köhler, 1887-1967) - German and American psychologist, one of the founders of Gestalt psychology. In the 1910s, while working at the anthropoid station of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (on the island of Tenerife), he studied thinking in chimpanzees and concluded that the understanding of animal thinking in behaviorism as solving problems through blind trial and error was inconsistent (see. Trial and error method) and the presence of intellectual (productive) behavior in apes (in some cases and in animals at an earlier phylogenetic stage). Having analyzed the conditions for monkeys to solve productive problems, he concluded that such a solution should be based on the formation of a “good gestalt” in the animal’s visual field (see. Insight).
Later, while working on general psychological issues, he came to the conclusion that there are integral structures (gestalts) not only in consciousness, but also in physiology and the physical world, and therefore, when solving a psychophysiological problem, he shared the concept of anti-localizationism.
K.'s ideas about the existence of a fundamental commonality in the structure of integral structures in various spheres of reality played a certain role in the development of a systems approach in psychology. Having emigrated to the USA (1935), K. continued research on the problem of the electrophysiological foundations of the formation of gestalts in consciousness. Recipient of the award “For Outstanding Contribution to Science” by Amer. Psychological Association (1956), was president of this association. (E.E. Sokolova)
Psychological Dictionary. A.V. Petrovsky M.G. Yaroshevsky
(1887–1967) - German-American psychologist, one of the leaders of Gestalt psychology. He experimentally proved in experiments on animals (“Study of the Intelligence of Apes,” 1917) the role of insight as a principle of organizing behavior. According to K., with the successful solution of an intellectual task, a vision of the situation as a whole occurs and its transformation into gestalt, due to which the nature of adaptive reactions changes.
Köhler Wolfgang's research expanded the scope of ideas about the nature of skills and new forms of behavior in humans and animals. K. was studying the phenomenon of transposition, which is based on the body’s reactions not to individual, isolated stimuli, but to their relationship. He believed that psychological knowledge should be modeled on physical knowledge, since the processes in consciousness and the body as a material system are in one-to-one correspondence (isomorphism). Guided by this idea, he extended the concept of gestalt to the brain. This prompted K.'s followers to postulate the presence of electric fields in the brain that serve as a correlate of mental gestalts in the perception of external objects.
Literature
- 1913 Uber unbemerkte Empfindungen und Urteilstauschungen (Unnoticed feelings and misjudgements). Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 66, 51-80.
- 1917 Intelligenzprufung an Menschenaffen. (The mentality of apes, English translation, Harcourt Brace, 1925.)
- 1920 Die physischen Gestalten in Ruhe und im stationären Zustand: eine naturphilosophische Untersuchung
- 1929 Gestalt Psychology. Liveright (rev. edn, 1947).
- 1938 The Place of Value in a World of Facts. Liveright.
- 1958 The present situation in brain physiology. American Psychologist, 13,150-154.
- 1965 Unsolved problems in the field of figurative after-effects. Psychological Record, 15, 63-83.
- 1969 The Task of Gestalt Psychology. Princeton University Press.
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Wolfgang Köhler (01/21/1887 - 06/11/1967) - German psychologist, one of the founders of Gestalt psychology. In the 1910s, he conducted research at an experimental station on the island. Tenerife (Canary Islands) on the problem of thinking in apes, as a result of which he showed that in apes, and even in less developed animals, thinking is carried out not simply through blind trial and error, carried out in practical terms (as was believed in behaviorism), but based on a mental representation of the progress of solving a problem.
At the basis of this decision, he saw the process of formation of an integral structure, or “good gestalt,” in the visual field of the animal. Subsequently, in his theoretical works, Köhler formulated a conclusion about the formation of gestalts not only in consciousness, but also at the level of physiology and physics, which allowed him to join supporters of the concept of anti-localizationism in solving the psychophysical problem. After emigrating to the USA in 1935, he studied the electrophysiological basis of the process of gestalt formation.
Köhler is a German psychologist who, together with M. Wertheimer and K. Koffka, laid the foundations of Gestalt psychology. Professor of psychology and philosophy at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin (since 1922), director of the Institute of Psychology in Berlin. Since 1935 in the USA; professor at Swathmore College in Princeton. Köhler's work at the zoological station on the island of Tenerife (1913-40) on the study of the intelligence of great apes became widely known.
Köhler came to the following conclusion:
1) chimpanzees have intelligent behavior of the same kind as humans; the difference in the behavior of chimpanzees and humans is only in the degree of complexity of the form or structure of behavior;
2) the latter represents a certain holistic structure of actions (gestalt) that arises in connection with the visual perception of the situation;
3) the nature of this perception is holistic, irreducible to individual elements simultaneous “grasping” of relationships (insight).
Köhler's erasure of the fundamental differences between the intelligence of humans and anthropoids was criticized in the subsequent development of psychology. For Köhler's works from the 1940s to the 60s. characterized by the desire to establish the structural commonality of physical and mental phenomena. Köhler tried to prove, based on erroneous naturalistic positions, the principle of isomorphism of the physical and physiological structure of the brain and mental processes, in particular, to derive Gestaltistically understood patterns of the psyche directly from the analysis of the electrical activity of the brain.
Biography of Wolfgang Köhler
Wolfgang Köhler was born on January 21, 1887 in Reval (now Tallinn). His father was a teacher in a private school run by the local German community. A cult of education reigned in the family. Wolfgang's older brother, Wilhelm, with whom he had a close friendship, devoted himself to science. The four sisters also received a good education - medical and pedagogical.
When Wolfgang Köhler was five years old, the family moved to the Vaterland. He received his education at the universities of Tübingen, Bonn and Berlin.
In those years, the German higher education system acted as a standard for the whole world. It combined student liberties with the highest level teaching and strict examination requirements. They say about German students of that time: a third of them could not withstand intense study and ended up with a nervous breakdown, another third fled from academic rigor into endless beer parties and ended up in alcoholism, but another third received an excellent education and ultimately created the destinies of Europe.
Köhler clearly belonged to the latter third, although he never particularly aspired to become a history maker. He was attracted to science.
At universities, Köhler received fundamental training in physics, chemistry, and biology. He was deeply impressed by one of the physics professors at the University of Berlin, the great Max Planck.
From his lectures, the future psychologist learned about the principle of entropy and dynamic self-regulation of physical systems - such as electrolytic media. Under the influence of Planck, Köhler came to the conviction that physical laws, in principle, explain biological phenomena, the understanding of which, in turn, contributes to the solution of psychological problems.
Even after many years, colleagues noted that Köhler’s way of thinking was more characteristic of a physicist than of a psychologist. Köhler's early scientific research intricately intertwined his interests in physics (specifically, acoustics), psychology, as well as his long-standing passion for music - his first experiments were devoted to the study of auditory perception. For these studies he received a doctorate in psychology (1909).
