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Cognitive Development by Gestalt Theory

Gestalt theory focuses on studying concepts as a whole rather than dividing them into parts. Gestalt psychologists like Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler believed that people naturally perceive events as a unified whole. They introduced principles of perception and behavior, explaining that things should be understood in the context of the specific conditions to which they belong, rather than being discussed separately. Gestalt theory influenced the development of cognitive learning theories by emphasizing how information is received, organized into patterns or schemas, and later recalled as a unified whole.

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100 views1 page

Cognitive Development by Gestalt Theory

Gestalt theory focuses on studying concepts as a whole rather than dividing them into parts. Gestalt psychologists like Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler believed that people naturally perceive events as a unified whole. They introduced principles of perception and behavior, explaining that things should be understood in the context of the specific conditions to which they belong, rather than being discussed separately. Gestalt theory influenced the development of cognitive learning theories by emphasizing how information is received, organized into patterns or schemas, and later recalled as a unified whole.

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Kadir Say's
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Introduction

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT BY GESTALT THEORY

Educational psychologists have always been busy in investigating learning


methodologies to make the knowledge more conducive, creative and authentic in terms of
behavioral changes, habit-formations, thinking-styles, reflecting and proceeding towards
higher goals. To achieve such a progressive and systematic approach towards learning, through
only behavioral theories, was never possible. Thus dawn of the era of change in the basics,
named cognitive theories of learning evolved. Cognitive approach also discusses the things that
cannot be observed, unlike behaviorist theories, which focuses on the only observable
phenomenon. Cognitive theorists are interested in finding out ways how to receive information,
retain it, and then retrieve it. Such information would provide educationists with a tool to
enhance learning among pupil and to help teachers in making their task more effective.

The gestalt is a German word, which means shape, form, or pattern. In the early
1900s, Gestalt psychologists in response to structuralists who were interested in division of
concepts to analyze the mental constructs, were more focused on studying the concepts as a
whole. Some German psychologist like Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka (1886-
1941) and Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967) created the concept of the apparent movement
named as phi phenomenon in which objects create illusions of different types when are close
together in one space or time. Thus, they argue that human nature studies the events as a whole,
therefore, things should not be discussed separately. While focusing on human perception and
behavior, they introduced principles of perception and human behavior with the elaboration of
specific conditions to which they belonged (Joseph & Ann, 2006; Alison Thomas, 2004).

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