Omissions, Difficulties and successes of the Gestalt theory of perception

Such then, is the present situation with respect to the gestalt theory of perception. In casting up the account we can’t, of course, undertake an appraisal of the gestalt system as a whole. But the agreement of the theory with facts in the realm of its own phenomenological formulation is excellent.

The researches of Kohler and Held on brain potentials in object-vision are suggestive but they do not carry us very far. In direct brain experiment, definitely adverse finding have appeared. It is fair to say that gestalt theory needs a support from psychological fact with the facts thus far have stubbornly refused to give.

On the score of the completeness of coverage of perceptual phenomena there are some notable omissions. Configurational experiences are in general well handled, and the phenomena of frame of reference also receive attention.

Kohler, in permiting his brain field to be topological rather than tied to proximal stimulus-dimension, has escaped the error of literal brain topography.  But the percept, in constancy phenomena, is fairly representative of the distal object.

Sensory qualities and dimensions seem to have been slighted in the gestalt theory of perception. Much has been said about the fact that they are affected by field changes and are subservient to the laws of the whole, but these statements do not do them justice.

They cannot be explained by isomorphism since they are merely continuances or spreads of a homogeneous quality or dimension, and they are without form or articulation.

Kohler has made an attempt to relate them to specific energies by way of chemical differences in the brain, but so far there is not much evidence for the view.

Perceptual set is recognized by gestaltists- it is even included among Wertheimer’s principle of groupings. But it does not seem to have been well integrated into the theory.

There are still further difficulties that bear upon explanatory significance. The neurological picture of the brain gives us everywhere a specificity of elements; we look in vain for something that would correspond to macroscopic fields or wholes. This fact in no way detracts from the truth or importance of the gestaltists demonstrations of a unique “whole character” in perception. The failure of the psychological and anatomical facts to conform only makes us appreciate the difficulty of the problem.