Ego and Self in Gestalt Theory

Summary The paper presents basic Gestalt theoretical concepts of ego and self. They differ from other concepts in the way that they do not comprehend ego and self as fixed entities or as central controlling instances of the psyche, but as one specific organized unit in a psychological field in dynamic interrelation with the other organized units—the environment units—of this field. On this theme, well-known representatives of Gestalt theory have presented some general and special theories since the early days of this approach that could partly be substantiated experimentally. They illuminate the relationship between ego and world in everyday life as well as in the case of mental disorders. Not only the spatial extension of the phenomenal ego is subject to situational changes, but also its place in the world, its functional fitting in this world, its internal differentiation, its permeability to the environment, and much more. The German Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Metzger emphasizes the significant functional role that this dynamic plasticity of the phenomenal world and its continuously changing segregation of ego and environment have for human life by designating the phenomenal world as a “Central Steering Mechanism.” In this article, ego and self as part of this field in their interrelation with the total psychological field will be illuminated from the perspective of the thinking of the Gestalt psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Lewin, Wolfgang Metzger, Mary Henle, Edwin Rausch, and Giuseppe Galli.

The Exploration of Arnheim‘s Theory of Visual Perception in the Field of Art Appreciation and Review in Junior High School

Rudolf Arnheim (German Rudolf Arnheim, 1904-2007) is a famous Gestalt psychologist and aesthetician in the history of western aesthetics. His research on the theory of visual perception plays an important role in exploring human thinking activities. Arnheim’s theory of visual perception and related research in the field of art education can provide professional and detailed theoretical support for the teaching of art curriculum appreciation and review in middle school. Through the analysis and exploration of Arnheim’s visual perception theory, this paper attempts to apply his visual perception theory to the learning field of junior high school art curriculum appreciation review. Teachers can make use of Arnheim’s relevant research results to make students understand and master art language more easily, and make full use of art language knowledge for art appreciation.

Linguistic profile of source as a terminographical tool

The article characterizes the sources of the historical dictionary of linguistic terms. The source base for the study of the evolution of Ukrainian linguistic terminology includes secondary sources, divided into such groups: 1) grammars and textbooks; 2) dictionaries and encyclopedias; 3) monographs and scientific articles on linguistic issues. The concept of “linguistic profile of the source” is used to describe the linguistic source of the historical dictionary of linguistic terms. The conceptualization process as a cognitive mechanism of the meaning formation is based on speech operations that a person uses in language usage. Determinant in the perception of information is the phenomenon of attention, which has several designations in cognitive linguistics: highlighting, perspectivization, profiling, focusing. The linguistic conceptualization of the cognitive profiling operation is based on the thesis that a person has the cognitive ability to perceive, interpret and describe the same reference situation differently, using different linguistic means. It is because a person chooses the most important and significant information for him at this moment from all other. Terms figure and background are used to describe the perceptual connection between the object of focus and the rest of the perceptual field. The links between terms figure and background at first were described by the Danish Gestalt psychologist E. Rubin. The concept of a linguistic profile of source is used to focus the researches attention on those aspects of the analyzed sources that are important for studying the evolution of the linguistic term. The following key points are I. “External” criticism of the source. 1. Time of the source creation. 2. Place of the source creation. 3. The historical and cultural and linguistic situation in the region of the source creation. 4. The author of the source, its age, education, worldview, etc. 5. Motives and circumstances of the source creation. 6. Estimation of the source in linguistic works. 7. Works that are the basis of the analyzed source. ІІ. “Internal” source criticism. 1. Complete coverage of language tiers. 2. The terms that denote the linguistic concepts, their hierarchical organization. 3. The author’s orientation on the specific Ukrainian / borrowed vocabulary to describe linguistic concepts. 4. Features of the usage of lexical units to denote the linguistic concepts in the source text, their paradigmatics and syntagmatics. This article is modelled the linguistic profile of I.H. Verkhratskyi’s works. The analysis of linguistic sources by these parameters makes it possible to present the history of a linguistic term in a linguistic text, taking into account its contextual environment and the richness of syntagmatic and paradigmatic connections. The linguistic profile of the source/works is an actual basis of dictionary articles of historical dictionaries of linguistic terms of different genres. Keywords: linguistic term, historical dictionary of linguistic terms, linguistic source studies, profiling, linguistic profile of a source, language personality.

PAN

In this text, the script of a performance/lecture, which combines live puppetry, digital film, and a lecture, is paired with a prefatory essay that seeks to address the theoretical questions raised by the play about embodiment, mind, AI, and the staging of consciousness. The play was performed at the Centre for the Less Good Idea, an arts laboratory, in Maboneng, Johannesburg, South Africa, in October 2018. In the play, two characters stand in as the early pioneers of primate research, Wolfgang Köhler (an early Gestalt psychologist) and Jane Goodall, whose observational fieldwork shifted primate studies profoundly. These two distinctive intellects advanced the commitment of the human species to work toward the preservation of, and engagement with, higher primates and in such ways altered our apprehension of the limits of the human through a challenge posed by our closest nonhuman kin. The play also explores the research of Norbert Wiener, the pioneer of the field of cybernetics (a term that he invented). Wiener inaugurated the massive proliferation of research into “feedback” theory, which he saw as fundamental to mechanic intelligence. In such terms, Wiener too was thinking about the limits of the human. The play introduces some discussion of artistic responses to these fields of inquiry through exploring the writings of Samuel Beckett and J. M. Coetzee. The play also addresses ethical questions about the uses of research. Both Wiener and Köhler used their work on the humanities in order to address our obligation to the human. At the same time, the play addresses our relations to those who, for reasons of ideology, “fall” outside of our definitions of the fully human. Much of the persuasive power of the work arises from the uncanny performances and in particular the staging of a life-sized wooden chimpanzee puppet. In this sense, the work makes an argument about meaning as embodied.

About the Ability to Be in Two Places at Once

Summary In 1915 the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin describes in his famous work on figure-ground perception, the phenomenon that when you look attentively at a picture, a second, virtual ego arises, breaking away from the viewer-ego to wander around in the picture along the contours of the depicted. In 1982, German Gestalt psychologist Edwin Rausch expanded this observation of the emergence of a second phenomenal ego to the conclusion that not only does a second phenomenal ego emerge, but with it a second phenomenal total field, ie a second phenomenal world with its own phenomenal ego and an own phenomenal environment of this ego. Several years ago, I proposed a multi-field-approach in psychotherapy building on this research. This approach involves three levels: First, the level of phenomenological observation and psychological analysis of the conditions that determine the formation of such a second total field (and even further total fields), regardless of whether this occurs spontaneously or intentionally or as a result of external influences. Second, the level of explanation of various psychic processes, which in the field of psychotherapy have been explained so far mainly on the basis of depth psychology, and the conceptualization of the therapeutic situation and therapeutic processes from a Gestalt psychological perspective. Third, finally, the level of practical application of such insights on the development of appropriate procedures and interventions that can promote or defer the emergence of such second or multiple fields in psychotherapy. The present article introduces the multi-field approach, especially at the first level, and refers to research and discussion on mind wandering, imagining, daydreaming and dissociation.

Face Value: The Phenomenology of Physiognomy

The concern of this article is to establish the difference between physiognomy and expression as it may be understood phenomenologically. The work of Merleau-Ponty founds the phenomenological appreciation of physiognomy, and Gestalt psychological studies on perceptual organization elaborate the specifics of physiognomic structure despite the naturalist assumptions of that school of psychology. Physiognomy is the organized structural specification of expression in the phenomenon that presents itself. This view is an alternative to conventional topical but nonthematic considerations on physiognomy (e.g., "face value," visual inspection, physiognomy in language perception, and facial expressiveness). Art therapy with its use of various media is a venue in which the physiognomy of clients' art products is a display of integralness or pathology. It is an immediate access to the world of the patient. The work of the Gestalt psychologist Rudolf Arnheim and of the art therapist Mala Betensky are associated with the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty in order to advance understanding of the significance of physiognomy in experience, in behavior, and in art therapy.

Film's Illusions

FILM'S ILLUSIONS: KULESHOV REVISITED FOR a century, moving images have been captivating millions around the world. Yet many of the attractions which bring people into cinema theatres and, more recently, which fix their eyes to television screens for hours on end, are only illusions. We say "movies" but no movement exists in film -- it is produced in the spectator's mind. The mechanics of this illusion is explained today with reference to two optical phenomena: The persistence of vision, described theoretically by Peter Mark Roget in 1824, and the so-called phi-phenomenon, also known as "stroboscopic effect," discovered by the gestalt psychologist Max Wertheimer.(1) These two effects permit the human brain to perceive a series of related static images (more precisely, motion phases) as a continuous motion. It is this illusion that permits the existence of moving pictures and, more recently, television. Unlike the motion pictures, which need only...

The Holism-Atomism Controversy: Gestalt Psychology Confronts the Revised Law of Inverse Variation

Gestalt psychology is rightly associated with an holistic point of view which may be paraphrased: ‘The whole is equal to something besides the sum of its parts.’ But much of the attractiveness of that statement inheres in its exceeding ambiguity; the words whole, is, besides, sum, and parts each have several meanings (although the context which the sentence provides eliminates some of these). One of the plausible interpretations of the sentence is that adding members to a class increases the number of properties shared by all members of that class. However, such an interpretation contradicts the logician's Revised ‘Law’ of Inverse Variation between the extension of a predicate term and its intension. The paradox is resolved by distinguishing between three types of intension, then recognizing that the logician's ‘Law’ applies quite well with respect to objective intension but may often fail as regards subjective intension, the central concern of the Gestalt psychologist.