8- Gestalt Approaches Flashcards
What was psychology based on in the early 1900s?
Behaviourism
How was research done mostly when psychology was based on behaviourism?
On animals
When did the Gestalt approach come about?
In the 1920s
What did the Gestalt approach stem from?
Behaviourism
What is the ultimate goal of problem solving?
Insight
What are 2 key concepts of the Gestalt approach?
Restructuring and incubation
Who was studied by Kohler, 1925?
Sultan the ape
What was Sultan the ape capable of?
Sudden restructuring of the problem where the solution suddenly occurs
What was Thorndike’s law of effect?
Any behaviour followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated and any behaviour followed by negative consequences is likely to be stopped
What did Thorndike’s law of effect lead to?
Operant conditioning
Who investigated insight and how?
Kounios and Beeman, 2009 by an EEG/fMRI study
What was done in the insight investigation?
Participants pressed a button when they thought they’d achieved insight while researchers saw a spike in neural activity
What was found in the investigation of insight?
There was a spike in the parahippocampal gyrus neural activity milliseconds before participants thought they’d achieved insight
What was reported when insight was investigated?
Whether the solution was developed gradually (analytical) or came suddenly (insight)
What was the problem with insight?
Gestalt psychologists described insight but didn’t explain mechanisms behind it
Who came up with representational change theory?
Ohlsson, 1992
What is the idea behind representational change theory?
Restructure our problem representation to allow retrieval of necessary operators
What are the 3 processes involved in representational change theory?
Elaboration, constraint relaxation, re-encoding
What is elaboration?
Addition of new information
What is constraint relaxation?
Rules are reinterpreted
What is re-encoding?
There is an ‘error’ in info so we have the right info but it’s wrong
Why do we incubate?
We attempt a task but hit an ‘impasse’
What is incubation an alternative to?
Restructuring
What do we do when we incubate?
Do a different task while the subconscious mind continues to work on the problem
What happens when we have an inappropriate solution to a problem?
Solving strategies are forgotten so we then select a new set of more successful operators
What is the solution triggered by after there is an inappropriate solution?
External events
What 3 factors did Silveira et al find may influence incubation effects?
Task presentation, preparation time, inconsistent results
What effect did task presentation have?
Higher interactivity gave a greater success rate
What effect did preparation time have?
Better incubation effects from longer preparation time
What reduces the incubation effect?
Filling incubation period with more cognitively demanding tasks
Why were results inconsistent?
No clear effects of incubation in any condition
What was the limitation of Silveira et al’s experiment?
Wasn’t recorded whether or not participants occupied themselves with a different cognitive task
