Internet surveys
Louis Cohen, Lawrence Manion, Keith Morrison in Research Methods in Education, 2017
The importance of the visual aspect of questionnaires is heightened in Internet surveys (Smyth et al., 2004), and this concerns the layout of questions, instructions and response lists, the grouping of items, the colours used, the spacing of response categories and the formatting of responses (e.g. writing in words or checking boxes). Smyth et al. report that respondents use ‘preattentive processing’ when approaching Internet surveys, i.e. they try to take in and understand the whole scene (or screen) before attending to specific items, hence visual features are important, for example, emboldened words, large fonts, colours, brightness, section headings, spacing, placing boxes around items. This rests on Gestalt psychology which abides by the principles of: (a) proximity (we tend to group together those items that are physically close to each other); (b) similarity (we tend to group together those items that appear alike); (c) prägnanz (figures or items with simplicity, regularity and symmetry are more easily perceived and remembered).
The Tao of Pain
Peter Wemyss-Gorman, John D Loeser in Pain, Suffering and Healing, 2018
However, Capra believed that it is not possible to understand fully the properties of the parts without knowledge of the dynamics of the whole. The parts cannot be well defined and they may show different properties depending on the context in which they are examined. Scientists from other disciplines have gradually realised that we have a universe that is more a network of relationships than one of fundamental building blocks. Thus we have a unity and a mutual relationship of all things and events. These are seen as interdependent and inseparable and as transitory patterns of the same ultimate reality. This type of approach has long been recognised by the proponents of gestalt psychology.
Animals in psychological research
Clive R. Hollin in An Introduction to Human–Animal Relationships, 2021
Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) was a German psychologist who, along with Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), Fritz Perls (1893–1970), and Kurt Koffka (1886–1941), was a prominent figure in the formation of Gestalt psychology. Gestalt psychology was concerned with how we make sense of our environment. In perceiving the world around we do not focus on every individual element it contains, rather we perceive elements to be part of a greater whole, a gestalt, which can be more than simply the sum of its parts. While no longer a mainstream theory, Gestalt psychology proved to be an important step in the study of human sensation and perception.
Through measurement positive care in psychiatry is conquered
Published in Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 2018
P. Bech
In his introduction to gestalt psychology, Köhler [6] considers clinical psychology as a very young science compared to the physical science. When physics only had access to more qualitative and less accurate observations, they were still able, like Hans Christian Ørsted in 1820, to discover the deflection of a magnet in the neighborhood of an electric current [6]. With the subsequent development of the electromagnetic fields, quantitative measurements became possible. We are now two centuries after Ørsted able to perform such quantitative measurements in psychiatry by the clinimetric procedures referred to in this issue of the journal as item response theory models. Thereby, clinical psychiatry has reached the level of physical science when measuring the “mental blood pressure” of our patients. Only through clinimetric measurements, positive care in psychiatry is conquered.
From Quantum Physics to Quantum Hypnosis: A Quantum Mind Perspective
Published in International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 2020
Giuseppe De Benedittis
Bistable perceptual phenomena is a fascinating topic in the area of perception. If a stimulus has an ambiguous interpretation, such as a Necker cube, the interpretation tends to oscillate across time behaving as quantum-like process (Kak, 2013). Quantum theory and an appropriate model have been developed by Conte et al. (2009) to account for interference effects obtained with measurement of ambiguous figures. Quantum theory has also been used for modeling Gestalt perception, as there are apparent similarities between Gestalt perception and quantum theory. In an article discussing the application of Gestalt to chemistry, Anton Amann (1993) writes, “Quantum mechanics does not explain Gestalt perception, of course, but in quantum mechanics and Gestalt psychology there exist almost isomorphic conceptions and problems.”
Structuralist Mental Representation of Dual-action Demands: Mechanisms of Improved Dual-task Performance after Practice in Older Adults
Published in Experimental Aging Research, 2021
Tilo Strobach, Lynn Huestegge
Another venerable stream of theory, namely Gestalt psychology (in particular in the Wertheimer, 1922, tradition), instead proposes that complex mental representations (“the whole”) can also be represented differently from the sum of its parts. Thus, a combination of the component response demands [A] and [B] might not result in [A + B] or [A→B], but rather in a distinct representation [C], without any resemblance to its components. This holistic account of mental representations is therefore in direct opposition to the structuralist account. However, this account has usually been studied with respect to perceptual representations (see Wagemans et al., 2012), and has only rarely been transferred to multiple action control (see Klapp & Jagacinski, 2011 for a notable exception).
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