gestalt psychologists consider problem solving

What is Gestalt Psychology? Theory, Principles, & Examples

Nathalia Bustamante

Harvard Graduate School of Education

Nathalia Bustamante is a Brazilian journalist at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

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On This Page:

Key Takeaways

• Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that seeks to understand how the human brain perceives experiences. It suggests that structures, perceived as a whole, have specific properties that are different from the sum of their individual parts.
• For instance, when reading a text, a person perceives each word and sentence as a whole with meaning, rather than seeing individual letters; and while each letterform is an independent individual unit, the greater meaning of the text depends on the arrangement of the letters into a specific configuration.
• Gestalt grew from the field of psychology in the beginning of the 19th Century. Austrian and German psychologists started researching the human mind’s tendency to try to make sense of the world around us through automatic grouping and association.
• The Gestalt Principles, or Laws of Perception, explain how this behavior of “pattern seeking” operates. They offer a powerful framework to understand human perception, and yet are simple to assimilate and implement.
• For that reason, the Gestalt Laws are appealing not only to psychologists but also to visual artists, educators and communicators.

What Does Gestalt Mean?

In a loose translation, the German word ‘Gestalt’ (pronounced “ge-shtalt”) means ‘configuration’, or ‘structure’. It makes a reference to the way individual components are structured by our perception as a psychical whole (Wulf, 1996). That structure provides a scientific explanation for why changes in spacing, organization and timing can radically transform how information is received and assimilated.

How the Gestalt Approach Formed?

Two of the main philosophical influences of Gestalt are Kantian epistemology and Husserl’s phenomenological method .

Both Kant and Husserls sought to understand human consciousness and perceptions of the world, arguing that those mental processes are not entirely mediated by rational thought (Jorge, 2010).

Similarly, the Gestalt researchers Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler observed that the human brain tends to automatically organize and interpret visual data through grouping.

They theorized that, because of those “mental shortcuts”, the perception of the whole is different from the sum of individual elements.

This idea that the whole is different from the sum of its parts – the central tenet of Gestalt psychology – challenged the then-prevailing theory of Structuralism .

This school of thought defended that mental processes should be broken down into their basic components, to focus on them individually.

Structuralists believed that complex perceptions could be understood by identifying the primitive sensations it caused – such as the points that make a square or particular pitches in a melody.

Gestalt, on the other hand, suggests the opposite path. It argues that the whole is grasped even before the brain perceives the individual parts – like when, looking at a photograph, we see the image of a face rather than a nose, two eyes, and the shape of a chin.

Therefore, to understand the subjective nature of human perception, we should transcend the specific parts to focus on the whole.

Gestalt Psychologists

Max wertheimer.

The inaugural article of Gestalt Psychology was Max Wertheimer’s Experimental Studies of the Perception of Movement , published in 1912.

Wertheimer, then at the Institute of Psychology in Frankfurt am Main, described a visual illusion called apparent motion in this article.

Apparent motion is the perception of movement that results from viewing a rapid sequence of static images, as happens in the movies or in flip books.

Wertheimer realized that the perception of the whole (the group of figures in a sequence) was radically different from the perception of its components (each static image).

Wolfgang Köhler

Wolfgang Köhler was particularly interested in physics and natural sciences. He introduced the concept of psychophysical isomorphism – arguing that how a stimulus is received is influenced by the brain’s general state while perceiving it (Shelvock, 2016).

He believed that organic processes tend to evolve to a state of equilibrium – like soap bubbles, that start in various shapes but always change into perfect spheres because that is their minimum energy state.

In the same way, the human brain would “converge” towards a minimum energy state through a process of simplifying perception – a mechanism that he called Pragnanz (Rock & Palmer, 1990).

Kurt Koffka

Koffka contributed to expanding Gestalt applications beyond visual perception. In his major article, Principles of Gestalt psychology (1935) he detailed the application of the Gestalt Laws to topics such as motor action, learning and memory, personality and society.

He also played a key role in taking the Gestalt Theory to the United States, to where he emigrated after the rise of Nazism in Germany.

Gestalt principles

Gestalt’s principles, or Laws of Perception, were formalized by Wertheimer in a treaty published in 1923, and further elaborated by Köhler, Koffka, and Metzger.

The principles are grounded on the human natural tendency of finding order in disorder – a process that happens in the brain, not in the sensory organs such as the eye. According to Wertheimer, the mind “makes sense” of stimulus captured by the eyes following a predictable set of principles.

The brain applies these principles to enable individuals to perceive uniform forms rather than simply collections of unconnected images.

Although these principles operate in a predictable way, they are actually mental shortcuts to interpreting information. As shortcuts, they sometimes make mistakes – and that is why they can lead to incorrect perceptions.

Prägnanz (law of simplicity)

• The law of Prägnanz is also called “law of simplicity” or “law of good figure”. It states that when faced with a set of ambiguous or complex objects, the human brain seeks to make them as simple as possible.
• The “good figure” is an object or image that can easily be perceived as a whole.
• A good example of this process is our perception of the Olympic logo. We tend to see overlapping circles (the simpler version) rather than a series of curved, connected lines (Dresp-Langley, 2015).
• This law suggests that we tend to group shapes, objects or design elements that share some similarity in terms of color, shape, orientation, texture or size.
• The law of proximity states that shapes, objects or design elements located near each other tend to be perceived as a group.
• Conversely, randomly located items tend to be perceived as isolated.
• This principle can be applied to direct attention to key elements within a design: the closer visual elements are to each other, the more likely they will be perceived as related to each other, and too much negative space between elements serve to isolate them from one another.

Common Region

• This law proposes that elements that are located within the same closed region – such as inside a circle or a shape – tend to be perceived as belonging to the same group.
• Those clearly defined boundaries between the inside and the outside of a shape create a stronger connection between elements, and can even overpower the law of Proximity or of Similarity.
• This law argues that shapes, objects or design elements that are positioned in a way that suggests lines, curves or planes will be perceived as such, and not as individual elements.
• We perceptually group the elements together to form a continuous image.
• This law suggests that the human brain has a natural tendency to visually close gaps in forms, particularly when identifying familiar images.
• When information is missing, our focus goes to what is present and automatically “fills” the missing parts with familiar lines, colors or patterns.
• Once a form has been identified, even if additional gaps are introduced, we still tend to visually complete the form, in order to make them stable.
• IBM’s iconic logo is one example of applied closure – blue horizontal lines are arranged in three stacks that we “close” to form the letterforms (Graham 2008).

The classic gestalt principles have been extended in various directions. The ones above are some of the most commonly cited, but there are others, such as the symmetry principle (symmetrical components will tend to be grouped together) and the common faith principle (elements tend to be perceived as grouped together if they move together).

Applications of Gestalt

Gestalt Psychology and the Laws of Perception influenced research from a multitude of disciplines – including linguistic, design, architecture and visual communication.

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy was founded by Frederick (Fritz) and Laura Perls in the 1940s. It focuses on the phenomenological method of awareness that distinguishes perceptions, feelings and actions from their interpretations.

It believes that explanations and interpretations are less reliable than the concrete – what is directly perceived and felt. It is a therapy rooted in dialogue, in which patients and therapists discuss differences in perspectives (Yontef, G, 1993).

Design Professor and specialist Gregg Berryman pointed out, in his book Notes on Graphic Design and Visual Communication (1979), that ‘Gestalt perceptual factors build a visual frame of reference which can provide the designer with a reliable psychological basis for the spatial organization of graphic information’.

In essence, Gestalt provided a framework of understanding upon which designers can make decisions.

What made gestalt theory appealing to visual artists and designers is its attempt to explain “pattern seeking” in human behavior.

The Gestalt Laws provided scientific validation of compositional structure, and were used by designers in the mid-twentieth century to explain and improve visual work.

They are particularly useful in the creation of posters, magazines, logos and billboards in a meaningful and organized way. More recently, they have also been applied to the design of websites, user interfaces and digital experiences (Graham 2008).

Product Development

The product’s form and other perceptual attributes such as color and texture are crucial in influencing customer’s buying decisions.

Product development has adopted Gestalt Laws in approaches that consider how the target customer will perceive the final product.

By considering these perceptions, the product developer is better able to understand potential risks, ambiguities and meanings of the product he or she is working on (Cziulik & Santos 2012).

Education and Learning

In Education, Gestalt Theory was applied as a reaction to behaviorism, which reduced experiences to simple stimulus-response reflections.

Gestalt suggested that students should perceive the whole of the learning goal, and then discover the relations between parts and the whole. That meant that teachers should provide the basic framework of the lesson as an organized and meaningful structure, and then go into details.

That would help students to understand the relation between contents and the overall goal of the lesson.

Problem-based learning methodologies also arose based on Gestalt principles.

When students are exposed to the whole of a problem, they can “make sense” of it before engaging in introspective thinking to analyze the connection between elements and craft independent solutions (Çeliköz et al. 2019).

The Gestalt Principles are applied to the design of advertisement, packaging and even physical stores.

Researchers that investigated how consumers form overall impressions of consumption objects found that they usually integrate visual information with their own evaluation of specific features (Zimmer & Golden, 1988).

More recent applications also analyze how consumer perceptions apply to online shopping environments. The fundamental Gestalt Laws are thus applied to site architecture and visual impact (Demangeot, 2010).

Gestalt Legacy

Most psychologists consider that the Gestalt School, as a theoretical field of study, died with its founding fathers in the 1940s. Two main reasons may have contributed to that decline.

The first reason are institutional and personal constraints: after they left Germany, Wetheimer, Koffka and Köhler obtained positions in which they could conduct research, but could not train PhDs.

At the same time, most of the students and researchers that had remained in Germany broadened the scope of their research beyond Gestalt topics.

The second reason for the decline of Gestalt Psychology were empirical findings dismantling Köhler’s electrical field theory that sought to explain the brain’s functioning.

Neuroscience and cognitive science emerged in the 1960s as stronger frameworks for explaining the functioning of the brain.

Still, nearly all psychology students can expect to find at least one chapter dedicated to Gestalt Psychology in their textbooks.

Similarly, fundamental questions about the subjective nature of perception and awareness are still addressed in contemporary scientific research – with the perks of counting on advanced methods that were not available for the Gestaltists in the first half of the XX Century (Wagemans et al, 2012).

Berryman, G. (1979). Notes on Graphic Design and Visual Communication. Los Altos. William Kaufmann. Inc., t979.

Cziulik, C., & dos Santos, F. L. (2011). An approach to define formal requirements into product development according to Gestalt principles. Product: Management and Development, 9(2), 89-100.

Çeliköz, N., Erisen, Y., & Sahin, M. (2019). Cognitive Learning Theories with Emphasis on Latent Learning, Gestalt and Information Processing Theories. Online Submission, 9(3), 18-33.

Demangeot, C., & Broderick, A. J. (2010). Consumer perceptions of online shopping environments: A gestalt approach. Psychology & Marketing, 27(2), 117-140.

Dresp-Langley, B. (2015). Principles of perceptual grouping: Implications for image-guided surgery. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1565.

Graham, L. (2008). Gestalt theory in interactive media design. Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 2(1).

Jorge, MLM. (2010) Implicaciones epistemológicas de la noción de forma en la psicología de la Gestalt. Revista de Historia de la Psicología. vol. 31, núm. 4 (diciembre)

O”Connor, Z. (2015). Colour, contrast and gestalt theories of perception: The impact in contemporary visual communications design. Color Research & Application, 40(1), 85-92.

Rock, I., & Palmer, S. (1990). The legacy of Gestalt psychology . Scientific American, 263(6), 84-91.

Shelvock, M. T. (2016). Gestalt theory and mixing audio. Innovation in Music II, 1-14.

Wagemans, J., Elder, J. H., Kubovy, M., Palmer, S. E., Peterson, M. A., Singh, M., & von der Heydt, R. (2012). A century of Gestalt psychology in visual perception : I. Perceptual grouping and figure–ground organization. Psychological bulletin, 138(6), 1172.

Yontef, G., & Simkin, J. (1993). Gestalt therapy: An introduction. Gestalt Journal Press.

Zimmer, M. R., & Golden, L. L. (1988). Impressions of retail stores: A content analysis of consume. Journal of retailing, 64(3), 265.

Further Information

Wagemans, J., Elder, J. H., Kubovy, M., Palmer, S. E., Peterson, M. A., Singh, M., & von der Heydt, R. (2012). A century of Gestalt psychology in visual perception: I. Perceptual grouping and figure–ground organization. Psychological bulletin, 138(6), 1172.

Raffagnino, R. (2019). Gestalt Therapy Effectiveness: A Systematic Review of Empirical Evidence. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 7(6), 66-83.

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Gestalt’s perspective on insight: a recap based on recent behavioral and neuroscientific evidence.

1. Introduction

2. the role of perceptual experience in problem-solving cognition: was the parallelism between bistable figures and insight problem-solving warranted, 3. the holistic approach: what has recent research discovered about the idea that solutions to problems sometimes come to mind in an off-on manner.

Using Koffka ’s ( 1935, p. 176 ) words: “The whole is something else than the sum of its parts, because summing is a meaningless procedure, whereas the whole-part relationship is meaningful”. Similarly, insight problem-solving is processed in a discrete off–on manner, and when solutions to problems emerge, they do so as a “whole”, and the solver cannot retroactively report the reasoning process that led him or her to the solution.

4. The Gestalt Psychologists Assume That the Solution to Problems Comes “With Sudden Clarity.” Can We See in This Statement a Proto-Assumption That Insightful Solutions Might Be Characterized by a Perception of Higher Accuracy?

5. conclusions and future directions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Vitello, M.; Salvi, C. Gestalt’s Perspective on Insight: A Recap Based on Recent Behavioral and Neuroscientific Evidence. J. Intell. 2023 , 11 , 224. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11120224

Vitello M, Salvi C. Gestalt’s Perspective on Insight: A Recap Based on Recent Behavioral and Neuroscientific Evidence. Journal of Intelligence . 2023; 11(12):224. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11120224

Vitello, Mary, and Carola Salvi. 2023. "Gestalt’s Perspective on Insight: A Recap Based on Recent Behavioral and Neuroscientific Evidence" Journal of Intelligence 11, no. 12: 224. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11120224

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Gestalt Psychology

Seeing the Mind and Behavior as a Whole

Gestalt psychology is a  school of thought  that looks at the human mind and behavior as a whole. Gestalt psychology suggests that humans don't focus on separate components but instead tend to perceive objects as elements of more complex systems.

Emily Roberts / Verywell

A core belief in Gestalt psychology is holism —that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The approach has played a major role in the study of human sensation and perception .

Gestalt Meaning

Gestalt is a German word that roughly means "configuration" or the way things are put together to form a whole.

The History of Gestalt Psychology

Originating in the work of Max Wertheimer , Gestalt psychology formed in part as a response to the structuralism of  Wilhelm Wundt .

Whereas followers of structuralism were interested in breaking psychological matters down into their smallest possible parts, Gestalt psychologists wanted to look at the totality of the mind and behavior. Guided by the principle of holism, Wertheimer and his followers identified instances where perception was based on seeing things as a complete whole, not as separate components.

A number of thinkers influenced the development of Gestalt psychology, including Immanuel Kant, Ernst Mach, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Wertheimer developed Gestalt psychology after observing what he called the phi phenomenon while watching alternating lights on a railway signal. The phi phenomenon is an optical illusion where two stationary objects seem to move if they are shown appearing and disappearing in rapid succession. In other words, we perceive movement where there is none.

Based on his observations of the phi phenomenon, Wertheimer concluded that we perceive things by seeing the whole perception, not by understanding individual parts. In the example of blinking lights at a train station, the whole we perceive is that one light appears to move quickly between two points. The reality is that two separate lights are blinking rapidly without moving at all.

Influential Gestalt Psychologists

Wertheimer's observations of the phi phenomenon are widely credited as the beginning of Gestalt psychology and he went on to publicize the core principles of the field. Other psychologists also had an influence on this school of psychology.

Wolfgang Köhler : Köhler connected Gestalt psychology to the natural sciences, arguing that organic phenomena are examples of holism at work. He also studied hearing and looked at problem-solving abilities in chimpanzees.

Kurt Koffka : Together with Wertheimer and Köhler, Koffka is considered a founder of the field. He applied the concept of Gestalt to child psychology , arguing that infants first understand things holistically before learning to differentiate them into parts. Koffka played a key role in bringing Gestalt principles to the United States.

Principles of Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology helped introduce the idea that human perception is not just about seeing what is actually present in the world around us. It is also heavily influenced by our motivations and expectations .

Wertheimer created principles to explain how Gestalt perception functions. Some of the most important principles of Gestalt theory are:

• Prägnanz : This foundational principle states that we naturally perceive things in their simplest form or organization.
• Similarity : This Gestalt principle suggests that we naturally group similar items together based on elements like color, size, and orientation. An example would be grouping dogs based on whether they are small or large, or if they are big or small.
• Proximity : The principle of proximity states that objects near each other tend to be viewed as a group.
• Continuity : According to this Gestalt principle, we perceive elements arranged on a line or curve as related to each other, while elements that are not on the line or curve are seen as separate.
• Closure : This suggests that elements that form a closed object will be perceived as a group. We will even fill in missing information to create closure and make sense of an object. An example of this Gestalt psychology principle is using negative space to give the illusion that a particular shape exists when it doesn't.
• Common region : This Gestalt psychology principle states that we tend to group objects together if they're located in the same bounded area. (For example, objects inside a box tend to be considered a group.)

Uses of Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology is useful in many areas, including therapy, design, product development, and learning.

Gestalt Therapy

Gestalt therapy is based on the idea that overall perception depends on the interaction between many factors. Among these factors are our past experiences, current environment, thoughts, feelings, and needs. Gestalt therapy involves key concepts such as awareness , unfinished business, and personal responsibility.

The main goal of Gestalt therapy is to help us focus on the present . While past context is important for viewing yourself as a whole, a Gestalt therapist will encourage you to keep your focus on your present experience.

Research suggests that Gestalt therapy is effective at treating symptoms of depression and anxiety , and it may help people gain confidence and increase feelings of self-efficacy and self-kindness. It is often a helpful way to structure group therapy .

The therapeutic process is reliant on the relationship between the client and therapist . As a client, you must feel comfortable enough to develop a close partnership with your therapist, and they must be able to create an unbiased environment where you can discuss your thoughts and experiences.

Beginning in the 1920s, designers began incorporating Gestalt principles in their work. Gestalt psychology led these designers to believe that we all share certain characteristics in the way we perceive visual objects and that we all have a natural ability to see "good" design.

Designers embraced Gestalt concepts, using our perception of contrast, color, symmetry, repetition, and proportion to create their work. Gestalt psychology influenced other design concepts, such as:

• Figure-ground relationship : This describes the contrast between a focal object (like a word, phrase, or image) and the negative space around it. Designers often use this to create impact.
• Visual hierarchy : Designers use the way we perceive and group visual objects to establish a visual hierarchy, ensuring that the most important word or image attracts our attention first.
• Associativity : This concept involves the principle of proximity. Designers often use this to determine where to place important objects, including text elements such as headlines, captions, and lists.

Product Development

Product designers use Gestalt psychology to inform their decisions during the development process. Consumers tend to like products that follow Gestalt principles.

This influence can be seen in the appearance of the products themselves and in their packaging and advertising. We can also see Gestalt principles at work in apps and digital products. Concepts like proximity, similarity, and continuity have become standards of our expected user experience.

Learning and Education

The Gestalt Theory of Learning relies on the law of simplicity. In simple terms, it states that each learning stimulus is perceived in its simplest form.

The psychology behind this learning theory states that we use our senses and previous experiences to gain knowledge about the world around us. It also suggests that we learn from the methods by which we are taught, in addition to being impacted by classroom environments and the academic culture.

Impact of Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology has largely been subsumed by other types of psychology, but it had an enormous influence on the field. Researchers like Kurt Lewin and Kurt Goldstein were influenced by Gestalt concepts before going on to make important contributions to psychology.

Gestalt theory is also important in that the idea of the whole being different than its parts has influenced our understanding of the brain and social behavior. Gestalt theory still impacts how we understand vision and the ways that context, visual illusions, and information processing impact our perception.

The Takeaway

Gestalt therapy continues as an effective tool for psychologists today. Its emphasis on a holistic approach plays an important role in cognitive psychology , perception, and social psychology , among other fields.

Frequently Asked Questions

Gestalt psychology was founded by Max Wertheimer, a Czechoslovakian psychologist who also developed a lie detection device to objectively study courtroom testimony. ]Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka are also considered co-founders of the Gestalt theory.

Most of the foundational principles of Gestalt psychology explain how we group things, such as by similarity, proximity, continuity, closure, and common reason. Prägnanz is another Gestalt principle and says that we tend to perceive complex things in their most simple form. Prägnanz is sometimes referred to as the law of simplicity, a concept that was first presented in 1914.

Gestalt psychology has influenced how we study perception and sensation. It also increases our understanding of how our cognitive processes influence the way we behave socially.

Some therapists use Gestalt psychology to help patients focus on the present over the past. Designers and product developers also use Gestalt theory to make their creations more appealing or to draw focus to certain elements over others. Educators may also use Gestalt principles to help their students learn.

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

A Gestalt Perspective on the Psychology of Thinking

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Gestalt theory, one of the major “schools” of psychology during the first half of the twentieth century, recently returned to prominence because of the enormous relevance to current research in cognitive science and other areas. Core concepts in Gestalt theory are dynamic self-distribution, structure, relational determination, organization, Prägnanz, reorganization, insight, and understanding. The most basic principle of Gestalt theory is that most wholes in nature are not merely the sums of their constituent elements, nor just more than the sums of their parts, but qualitatively entirely different from some additive product. Gestalten are dynamic structures the qualities and nature of which determine the place, role, and function of their constituent parts. Several examples illustrate how productive human thinking involves transforming a confused, opaque, incomprehensible problem situation into a clear, clean Gestalt or organization which makes sense, is coherent, and generates insight about the genuine nature of the problem structure and its solution.

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Wertheimer, M. (2010). A Gestalt Perspective on the Psychology of Thinking. In: Glatzeder, B., Goel, V., Müller, A. (eds) Towards a Theory of Thinking. On Thinking. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03129-8_4

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Gestalt Psychologists Consider Problem Solving as a Process Involving

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