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Gestalt (gӘshtält') [Ger.,=form] is a German term interpreted in psychology as “pattern” or “configuration”, it is a school of  psychology created by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka. the school emerged in Austria and Germany in the early twentieth century. Gestalt psychology was formed after Wertheimer's discovery between 1910 and 1912 of the phi phenomenon which focused on the illusion of motion. The approach was based on a macroscopic view of the psychological behaviors rather than a microscopic approach.

Gestalt school is based on understanding and perceiving the whole sum of an object rather than its components. It was created against the atomistic concept of psychology as well as the general intellectual climate, which was built on the believe that scientific understanding is the result of lack of concern about the basic human details.

Wertheimer defined a few principals that explain the way human perceive objects in a certain way. Those principals were based on similarity, proximity, continuity, The Gestalt concept is based perceiving reality in its simplest form.

Gestalt theories of perception are based on the human nature being inclined to understand objects as an entire structure rather than the sum of its parts.

Theoretical explanation and physical mechanisms
The halo effect can be explained through the application of Gestalt theories to social information processing. The constructive theories of social cognition are applied though the expectations of individuals. They have been perceived in this manner and the person judging the individual is continuing to view them in this positive manner. Gestalt’s theories of perception enforces that individuals tendency to perceive actions and characteristics as a whole rather than isolated parts, therefore humans are inclined to build a coherent and consistent impression of objects and behaviors in order to achieve an acceptable shape and form. The halo effect is what forms patterns for individuals, the halo effect being classified as a cognitive bias which occurs during impression formation. The Halo effect can also be altered by physical characteristics, social status and many other characteristics. As well, the Halo effect can have real repercussions on the individual’s perception of reality, either negatively of positively, meaning to construct negative or positive images about other individuals or situations, something that could lead to self-fulfilling prophesies, stereotyping, or even discrimination.

Contributions of Gestalt Psychology
Gestalt psychology made many contributions to the body of psychology, first to perception, explained in Wertheimer’s phi phenomenon, which is how the human eye perceives static objects displayed in a certain speed appear as if moving. The second contribution is to the perceptual organization; Gestalt psychologists believe that humans tend to perceive objects as complete rather than focusing on the gaps that the object might contain. For example, the shape of a circle is called a good Gestalt in terms of completeness, although an incomplete figure will also be preserved as complete, that tendency to complete shapes and figures is called closure, thus a curved line will be perceived as a circle. The perceptual field in Gestalt psychology is determined by the interactions in the individual’s environment. Perceptual field is interpreted by the Gestalt psychology as the entirety of the elements that take place in the individual’s surroundings, and the organization of those elements serves as a meaning for the perceptual field, which can be explained by the structural organization of the elements in order to be perceived as figures (standing out in the front of the image) or the ground (receding behind the figure). This predisposition to perceive objects explains seeing figures prominent to their own background. And the third contribution is to problem solving reflected in the thinking, Gestalt psychologist proved that the approach to solve some problems can be reaches throughout many mechanisms such as sudden reorganization, called insight a term that refers to the cognitive experience of sudden realization of a problem’s solution. For example giving chimpanzees some boxes and placing the food in a high place in the room, the chimpanzees realized that they can stack the boxes on top of each other and reach the food.