58 GESTALTPSIHOLOGIYA

Gestalt psychology (from German gestalt - “image, form”) is a trend in Western psychology that originated in Germany in the first third of the 20th century, which launched a program for the study of the psyche from the point of view of integral structures (Gestalt), primary to its components. Gestalt psychology (G.) spoke against the principle of separation of consciousness into separate elements and the construction of them on the basis of the laws of association or the creative synthesis of complex mental phenomena put forward by structural psychology (V. Wundt, E. B. Titchener and others). The idea that the internal, systemic organization of the whole provides the properties and functions of its constituent parts was applied initially to the experimental study of perception (mostly visual). Using this, one can study a number of important components of perception: constancy, structure, dependence of the image of an object (“figure”) on its immediate environment (“background”), etc.

When analyzing intellectual behavior, the role of the sensory image in the compilation of motor responses was traced. The construction of this image was interpreted by a special psychic act of comprehension, a quick grasp of relationships in the perceived field. These provisions G. opposed behaviorism, which explained the behavior of the organism in a problematic situation by enumeration of "blind" motor tests, which accidentally led to a successful solution. When studying the processes of human thinking, the main emphasis was placed on the transformation (“reorganization”, new “centering”) of cognitive structures, thanks to which these processes become productive, which distinguishes them from formal logical manipulations, algorithms, etc. Although the ideas of D and its results contributed to the development of knowledge about psychological processes (primarily the category of mental image), and also led to the approval of a systems approach, its idealistic methodology (going back to emenology) prevented the scientific, causal analysis of these processes. Psychic "gestalts" and their transformations were interpreted as properties of individual consciousness, whose dependence on the objective world and the activity of the central nervous system was represented by the type of isomorphism (structural similarity), which is a variant of psychophysical parallelism. The main representatives are German psychologists M. Wertheimer, K. Koffka. The general scientific positions close to it belonged to K. Levin and his school, who spread the principle of consistency and the idea of ​​the priority of the whole in changing mental formations to the motivation of human behavior.

Other representatives: K. Goldstein - a supporter of "holism" (integrity) in pathopsychology, F. Haider, who introduced the concept of gestalt into social psychology in order to interpret interpersonal perception, etc.