By the time Wertheimer and his colleagues developed their psychological doctrine, the idea of Gestalt had already been employed in the broader holistic literature with a range of non-scientific, at times mystical, implications. In this discourse Gestalt could work as an ordering principle or as a plurality of connected wholes, it reassured people that community, nation and culture need not to be melded in an all-embracing cosmopolitism. It could also imply that individuals were not just engulfed by an undifferentiated whole but occupied a logical position within it. In short, in the public discourse the concept of Gestalt represented the German political, cultural and spiritual efforts for a renewal.119 The Gestalt psychologists needed to draw a line liberating their work from these implications. Wertheimer mastered this challenge by granting his doctrine a strict lawfulness, which had to be respected with absolute mathematical accuracy.
“Ich stehe am Fenster und sehe ein Haus, Bäume, Himmel. Und könnte nun, aus theo-retischen Gründen, abzuzählen versuchen und sagen: da sind ... 327 Helligkeiten (und Farbtöne). [...] Und seien in dieser sonderbaren Rechnung etwa Haus 120 und Bäume 90 und Himmel 117, so habe ich jedenfalls dieses Zusammen, dieses Getrenntsein, und nicht etwa 127 und 100 und 100; oder 150 und 177. In dem bestimmten Zusammen, der be-stimmten Getrenntheit sehe ich es; und in welcher Art des Zusammen, der Getrenntheit ich es sehe, das steht nicht einfach in meinem Belieben: ich kann durchaus nicht etwa nach Belieben jede irgend andere gewünschte Art der Zusammengefaßtheit einfach realisieren”
[Wertheimer, 1923, 301].
In very simple terms, the nucleus of the Gestalt doctrine can be formulated as follows: Gestalt is a product of organization and the organization of the process that leads to a Gestalt. In this context organization is as a category diametrically opposed to juxtaposition or arbitrary distribution. The claim that a process, or the product of a process, is a Gestalt means, thus, that it cannot be explained by a random combination of essentially unconnected causes but that its essence consists in a reasonable structure.120 Accordingly, the central principle of Gestalt, as spelled out by Wertheimer is "what happens to a part of the whole [in the process of organization] is determined by intrinsic laws inherent in this whole" [Wertheimer, 1925, 7]. Starting from this (in today’s eyes) simple idea, a theoretical doctrine, an experimental program, a school with dozens of disciples and a particular worldview arose altogether.
“The basic thesis of gestalt theory might be formulated thus: there are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces,
118Cf. [Köhler, 1988, 55].
119Cf. [Harrington, 1996, 103f.].
120Cf. [Koffka, 1935a, 682f.].
but conversely; what happens to be a part of the whole is, in clear-cut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole” [Wertheimer, 1944, 84].
The Gestalt psychologists’ goal was not to uncover laws that could account for the variance in different subjects’ perceptions under particular conditions, but to search for what Max Wertheimer called the
"essence" of phenomena. By this he meant the order believed to inhere in phenomena as experienced under concrete stimulus conditions, not correlational or other contingent functional relationships between independent and dependent variables. In other words, the perceptual fields appear to us organized in a particular and meaningful way. This implied that experience has to be studied as it occurred, as a whole, and not broken down in an artificial analysis.121
The invariant relationships between the whole and its parts became subject to the so called "Gestalt laws" of perception. These were first presented to wider public in a two-parts manifest-like article in the volume 1 and 4 of thePsychologische Forschung(1922, 1923). Wertheimer believed that the laws were fully researchable using experimental methods. The Gestalt laws are not perception principles as such but more general principles of formation and constitution of Gestalten. Maybe the most foundational laws Wertheimer named were the following.122
1. Thelaw of proximity (Nähe)statesthat a row of dots with equal intervals between them, for exam-ple, will be seen as a series of pairs, while the same number of dots with only slight changes in the spacing will be perceived as single groups of three dots (figure 2).123
2. Thelaw of similarity (Ähnlichkeit) states that if an array of equally spaced black and white dots is shown in alliterating vertical and horizontal rows of the same color, observers will see verticals or horizontals, as decided by the similar grouping (cf. ebd. 309, figure 3).
3. Thelaw of closure(Geschlossenheit) states that an enclosed region or field tends to be perceived as a figure. The tendency to closure is clearest with adjoining figures. For example, if two squares touch at only one point, they will be seen as two distinct figures; but if they overlap, or if one encloses the other, the observer’s judgement may be different (cf. ebd. 326ff., fig. 4).
4. Thelaw of continuity (Kontinuität): Wertheimer claimed that observers typically see continuous lines, and resist the changes of direction necessary to see the organization. For instance, in figure 5 one would perceive the crossing of who lines, one going from left to right, the other from top to the bottom.
5. There were also more general of the laws, such as thelaw of good continuation(gute Fortsetzung):
Observers tend to perceive figures in ambiguous or imperfect fields as "good" (simple, regular, symmetrical, etc.) as the prevailing conditions allow (cf. ebd. 324ff.).
6. Finally, thelawof the tendency toward simple formation (Prägnanz), states that there is a tendency toward “simple formation” of structures. This means that the visible connection of the position, size, brightness and other qualities of objects within a perceptual field takes on the simplest and most impressing structure permitted by the given conditions (cf. ebd. 318f.).
In conclusion, Wertheimer reasoned that not punctiform “sensations”, but clearly identifiable structures (Gestalten) were the primary constituents of consciousness. These structures were meaningfully related to one another in ways that generally do not correspond to one-to-one connections between stimuli and sensations. Sometimes Wertheimer spoke of "good" phenomena, those that most clearly and immedi-ately exemplify the structure experienced in a given situation. Wertheimer was convinced that Gestalt
121Cf. [Wertheimer, 1923, 301ff.].
122See [Wertheimer, 1922, Wertheimer, 1923].
123Cf. [Wertheimer, 1923, 304-307].
Figure 2: Illustration of the law of proximity, after [Wertheimer, 1923, 304-307]
Figure 3: Illustration of the law of similarity, after [Wertheimer, 1923, 309]
laws were subject to empirical proof. The challenge was thus to devise experimental situations in such a way that "good" phenomena could happen.124
The joint commitment to Max Wertheimer’s epistemological Gestalt principles kept the Gestalt psycholo-gists together in the first place. Anyone of the trio pursued individual research interests which, however, did not oppose the deep joint commitment to the Gestalt doctrine. Various recollections attest that he was considered by students and Gestalt followers to be "the intellectual leader," "l’eminence grise," "the leader of the Gestalt movement" and "the most creative person at the Institute,” even though he was nei-ther the director nor a full professor. “On theory matters he [=Köhler] behaved toward Wertheimer as if he were the last word. [...] He was the high priest with Köhler and Koffka as front man and disciples. [...]
One had the impression that both Köhler and Koffka owed much to Wertheimer and that they regarded him as a high priest".125
The journal in which the members of all three institutes published most of their work was founded on May 15, 1921, with a contract between the editors – Kurt Koffka (the first editor in chief), Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Goldstein and Hans Gruhle, a psychiatrist and and philosopher from Heidelberg – and theJulius Springer-Verlag, a well-known Berlin publisher in the field of natural science. This journal, named Psychologische Forschung (Psychological Research), gave Gestalt psychology its name and identity, and served as a publication vehicle for Gestalt theory until 1938. At first, its intention was to cover all fields of psychology. Contributions appeared on psychology of thought, ethnological psychology and psychopathology. However, psychology of perception, especially visual perception, clearly dominated.
Of 270 original research articles in the journal’s first 22 volumes, 151 dealt with such topics. Over the years, research reports from Berlin, Giessen and Frankfurt took up the vast majority of the journal’s pages along with writings by the Gestalt theorists themselves. Thus, the editors’ declared intentions gradually lost force; the self-presentation of Gestalt theory became more important than that of the psychological discipline as a whole.126
124Cf. [Wertheimer, 1923, 324-329].
125See quotations from the students’ recollections assembled and published by Abraham Luchins, formerly Max Wertheimer’s assistant at the of Social Research in New York, and Edith H. Luchins, [Luchins and Luchins, 1986, 9, 15, 14].
126Cf. [Ash, 1995, 217].
Figure 4: Illustration of the law of similarity, after [Wertheimer, 1923, 326]
Figure 5: Illustration of the law of closure, after [Wertheimer, 1923, 322]