By With the collaboration of other prestigious researchers, Koffka’s ideas were fundamental to understanding how human beings perceive and relate to the world around us.
Almost everyone is familiar with the phrase “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” and a German psychologist has a lot to do with it. Kurt Koffka was one of the main developers of Gestalt psychology, a movement that influenced other schools, including cognitive, humanistic and systemic.
In addition to providing interesting biographical information, here we delve into his main ideas and his most relevant contributions to Gestalt theory.
Life of Kurt Koffka
Berlin (1886) was Koffka’s birthplace. Despite coming from a family with strong roots in the legal profession, expectations of continuing the legal tradition were not fulfilled in his case. Instead, he chose to study Philosophy and Psychology, becoming a leading professional in the field.
He was educated at various academies, including the University of Edinburgh in Scotland , the University of Berlin and the University of Würzburg. After earning his PhD in Psychology in 1909, he worked as an assistant in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Würzburg, under such renowned figures as Oswald Külpe.
A year later, he continued his research at the Frankfurt Psychological Institute, where he met Wolfgang Köhler and, in association with Max Wertheimer, established the theoretical foundations of Gestalt psychology.
They studied human perception and other fundamental perceptual phenomena. The experiments and work they carried out during this period were crucial to the development and dissemination of Gestalt theory, which would soon gain international recognition.
Later, he returned to Germany to teach at the University of Giessen. At the same time, he deepened his studies into basic processes of the human mind such as thought and memory . By 1921, he had become director of the university’s Institute of Psychology.
Due to the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany—his theories were more valued in America than at home—he emigrated to the United States in 1935. There he joined Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he continued his professional career successfully. He died six years later of a heart attack.
What did Kurt Koffka contribute to Gestalt psychology?
As co-founder of Gestalt psychology, Kurt Koffka helped develop the fundamental principles and concepts of this school of thought. This school of thought was born as an alternative to the reductionist views of structuralism and functionalism, which analysed perceptual experience in isolated parts.
Gestalt challenges this idea, proposing a more holistic and complex vision, seeking to understand how the mind organizes and gives meaning to perception in its entirety. Below are the main ideas of this psychologist and researcher.
Perception in childhood
In his work The Growth of the Mind , the German proposes that babies, as they grow, develop the ability to perceive and understand the individual and structured parts that make up the whole.
Koffka argues that this evolution goes against the trial-and-error method of learning. Instead, he supports the idea of insight , which implies that true learning comes from understanding situations in their complexity, not from solving a problem by chance.
Perception and memory
On memory, he suggests that every experience and external stimulus leaves a trace in our brain, a mark on our mind. Later, when we live through similar experiences, these traces affect how we remember and learn.
This point of view coincides with the foundations of constructivism , a model that emphasizes that each individual interprets and gives meaning to their world based on their experiences, perceptions and prior knowledge.
Perceptual organization
In Experimental Investigations into Rhythm , he explored the impact of musical rhythms on perception and how our brains structure temporal stimuli . He then extended his inquiries to examine how we perceive and organize visual images and experiences in our minds.
He concluded by observing the world around us that we do not perceive isolated parts, but rather we organize those parts into meaningful and coherent ways. This ability is known as perceptual organization . Two of the fundamental laws of Gestalt theory follow from this.
1. Proximity principle
It establishes that we tend to perceive elements that are close to each other as part of a group or set, which helps us identify patterns and relationships in visual information. For example, in this case we group, not voluntarily, but spontaneously, the points close to each other to read the letter “A”.
2. Principle of figure and ground
Our brain organizes and orders the information it sees in order to process and interpret it. Thus, we distinguish the figure (main object of interest) and a background (the surrounding area). This principle can be illustrated with the famous example of Rubin’s optical illusion .
We can see this image in two ways: as two faces looking at each other in profile or as a cup in the centre. Depending on how we organise the visual information, we will see one figure or the other.
Perception of movement and shape
One of the most relevant experiments that Koffka conducted was the phenomenon of apparent motion, also known as the phi illusion . Participants were shown a series of static images that alternated rapidly, creating the sensation of constant movement.
From this study it was concluded that our perception of movement is not limited to the sum of still images, but is based on the organization of visual stimuli in a coherent sequence. For example, if we see a series of images of a ball in different positions, our mind orders them in a logical sequence that allows us to perceive the movement of the sphere.
Pragnanz concept
In collaboration with his colleagues, Kurt Koffka introduced the concept of Pragnanz , which is now associated with the law of simplicity. This term translates as “pregnancy” or “conciseness,” and suggests that people seek to organize experience in the simplest and clearest way possible.
Our mind has an innate preference for order over chaos. It likes things that require less cognitive effort. Therefore, it will always tend to simplify complexity. This is a fundamental idea in modern psychology and applies to diverse fields such as UX design, marketing , and teaching.
Koffka’s influence on modern psychological trends
The approach to visual perception and the organization of experience has transcended the time of Kurt Koffaka to become the fundamental pillar in several contemporary psychological currents. Among his main ideas, it is highlighted that we do not only see what is in front of us, but that our mind gives it meaning.
This is particularly relevant to cognitivism , which focuses on studying how our minds work, addressing processes such as perception, memory, and thought.
His ideas also resonated with constructivism, which emphasizes how people construct their understanding of the world through interaction with their environment.
An architect in understanding what surrounds us
There is no doubt that Koffka’s legacy is significant and enduring. As a contributor to the development of Gestalt psychology, this psychologist’s contribution left an indelible mark on the field. He provided a solid theoretical framework for understanding how we process the world around us.
Furthermore, his approach broadened our understanding of such relevant concepts as memory, perception and learning. In short, his academic and intellectual legacy enriched the way in which we understand today the functioning of the human mind and its relationship with the environment.