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Max Wertheimer
Born April 15, 1880
Prague
Died October 12, 1943
New Rochelle, New York
Nationality Czech
Fields psychology
Alma mater University of Prague

Max Wertheimer (April 15, 1880 – October 12, 1943) was a Czech-born Jewish psychologist who was one of the three founders of Gestalt psychology, along with Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler. Events 1450 - Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English Year 1880 ( MDCCCLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year Prague (ˈprɑːg Praha (ˈpraɦa see also other names) is the Capital and Largest city of the Czech Republic. Events 539 BC - The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon. Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. New Rochelle ( French: Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in the south-east portion of the U Czechs (Češi ˈt͡ʃɛʃɪ archaic Čechové) are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and Alma mater is Latin for "nourishing mother" It was used in Ancient Rome as a title for the mother Goddess, and in Medieval Events 1450 - Battle of Formigny: Toward the end of the Hundred Years' War, the French attack and nearly annihilate English Year 1880 ( MDCCCLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year Events 539 BC - The army of Cyrus the Great of Persia takes Babylon. Year 1943 ( MCMXLIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Czechs (Češi ˈt͡ʃɛʃɪ archaic Čechové) are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Gestalt psychology (also Gestalt of the Berlin School) is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic Kurt Koffka ( Berlin, March 18, 1886 - Northampton, November 22, 1941) was born and educated in Berlin and earned

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Early life

Wertheimer was born in Prague, Bohemia, where his father was the founder of a highly successful and innovative business school called Handelsschule Wertheimer. Prague (ˈprɑːg Praha (ˈpraɦa see also other names) is the Capital and Largest city of the Czech Republic. Bohemia (Čechy; Bohemia Czechy is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands, currently the His mother was well-educated in culture, literature and the arts, and was also an accomplished violinist.

At age 18, having passed his comprehensive exams at the Prague Gymnasium, Wertheimer entered the University of Prague, with the intent of going into law. However, he was drawn to other subjects as well, including history, music, art, physiology and ethnology. In 1901, he formally switched his curricular plan from law to philosophy (of which psychology was a branch). Continuing his studies at the University of Berlin, then at the University of Wurzburg, he was granted a Ph. The University of Würzburg is a university in Würzburg, Germany, founded in 1402 D (summa cum laude) from Wurzburg in 1904, for a dissertation that pertained to certain psychological aspects of law.

While at the University of Prague, Wertheimer became interested in the lectures of Christian von Ehrenfels, an Austrian philosopher who, in 1890, published what is often said to be the first paper on holistic form qualities or (as Ehrenfels called them) Gestalt qualities. Christian Freiherr von Ehrenfels ( June 2 1859 in Rodaun near Vienna - September 8 1932 in Lichtenau) was an By more than twenty years, this paper anticipated some of the findings of Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler, in what is now commonly known as Gestalt psychology (or Gestalt theory, to imply that it also pertains to disciplines outside of psychology). Gestalt psychology (also Gestalt of the Berlin School) is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic

Gestalt Theory

No one is certain how Gestalt psychology came about. The same story is always told, but it may be apocryphal. It is said that Wertheimer was traveling by train on vacation in 1910 when he saw the blinking lights at a railroad crossing, like the lights that appear on a theatre sign. Sensing the significance of this ubiquitous phenomenon, he got off the train at Frankfurt am Main and bought a motion picture toy (called a zoetrope) with which to experiment. A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures He ended up staying in Frankfurt until 1915, teaching philosophy and psychology at the Psychological Institute from 1912-14, while continuing his research of apparent movement (or the phi phenomenon). The phi phenomenon is a perceptual Illusion described by Max Wertheimer in his 1912 Experimental Studies on the Seeing of Motion,

In his research, rather than using a zoetrope, Wertheimer relied on a scientific instrument called a tachistoscope, by which he was able to flash shapes onto a screen, successively, for exact lengths of time. A tachistoscope is a device that displays (usually by projecting an Image for a specific amount of time The people who served as his experimental subjects in this were two younger colleagues at Frankfurt, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler. In 1912, Wertheimer published a seminal paper on Experimentelle Studien über das Sehen von Bewegung (Experimental Studies in the Perception of Movement), which his students referred to informally as his Punktarbeit or “dot paper” because its illustrations were abstract patterns made of dots. The three psychologists began to collaborate, to publish papers, and, in time, they became world-famous as the originators of Gestalt theory.

World War I

The collaborative work of the three Gestalt psychologists was interrupted by World War I. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Both Wertheimer and Koffka were assigned to war-related research, while Kohler was appointed the director of an anthropoid research station on Teneriffe, in the Canary Islands. For the article about the Spanish Island see Tenerife For the article about the Brisbane suburb see Teneriffe Queensland The Canary Islands ( English pronunciation kəˈnæriː ˈaɪləndz Spanish: Islas Canarias, ˈizlas kaˈnarjas are a Spanish The three men reunited after the war ended and continued further research on the experiments.

Berlin Years

After the war, Koffka returned to Frankfurt, while Kohler became the director of the Psychological Institute at the University of Berlin, where Wertheimer was already on the faculty. Using the abandoned rooms of the Imperial Palace, they established a now-famous graduate school, in tandem with a journal called Psychologische Forschung (Psychological Research: Journal of Psychology and its Neighboring Fields), in which their students’ and their own research was initially published. The success of their efforts is evidenced by the familiarity of the names of their students in the literature of psychology, among them Kurt Lewin, Rudolf Arnheim, Wolfgang Metzger, Bluma Zeigarnik, Karl Duncker, Herta Kopfermann and Kurt Gottschaldt. Kurt Zadek Lewin (1890 - 1947 a German-born psychologist, is one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and Applied psychology Rudolf Arnheim ( July 15, 1904 &ndash June 9, 2007) was a German -born author art and Film theorist and perceptual psychologist Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik (Блюма Вульфовна Зейгарник 9 November, 1900 − 24 February, 1988) was a Soviet

In 1923, while teaching in Berlin, Wertheimer married Anna (called Anni) Caro, a physician’s daughter, with whom he had four children: Rudolf (who died in infancy), Valentin, Michael and Lise. Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. They divorced in 1942.

The New School

From 1929 to 1933, Wertheimer was a professor at the University of Frankfurt. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Third Reich in 1933, it became apparent to Wertheimer (and to countless other “non-Aryan” intellectuals) that he must leave Germany. Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the common English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers In the end, he accepted an offer to teach at the New School for Social Research in New York. This is about the university in New York; for other uses see New School (disambiguation. New York ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous The Wertheimers’ emigration was arranged through the U. S. consulate in Prague, and he and his wife and their children arrived in New York harbor on September 13, 1933.

Later life

For the remaining decade of his life, Wertheimer continued to teach at the New School, while remaining in touch with his European colleagues, many of whom had also emigrated to the U. S. Koffka was teaching at Smith College, Kohler at Swarthmore College, and Lewin at Cornell University and the University of Iowa. Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton Massachusetts. Swarthmore College is a private, independent, liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1500 students The University of Iowa, is a major teaching service and Research university located on a campus in Iowa City Iowa, on the banks of the Iowa River Although in declining health, he continued to work on his research of problem-solving, or what he preferred to call “productive thinking. Problem solving forms part of thinking. Considered the most complex of all intellectual functions problem solving has been defined as higher-order Cognitive ” He completed his book (his only book) on the subject (with that phrase as its title) in late September 1943, and died just three weeks later of a heart attack. Wertheimer was buried in Beechwood Cemetery in New Rochelle, New York. New Rochelle ( French: Nouvelle-Rochelle) is a city in the south-east portion of the U

References

External links

See also

Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) PMID is an Acronym for PubMed Identifier or more specifically PubMed Unique Identifier which is a unique number assigned to each PubMed Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) PMID is an Acronym for PubMed Identifier or more specifically PubMed Unique Identifier which is a unique number assigned to each PubMed Year 1988 ( MCMLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar) PMID is an Acronym for PubMed Identifier or more specifically PubMed Unique Identifier which is a unique number assigned to each PubMed Year 1987 ( MCMLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar) PMID is an Acronym for PubMed Identifier or more specifically PubMed Unique Identifier which is a unique number assigned to each PubMed Year 1987 ( MCMLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link displays 1987 Gregorian calendar) PMID is an Acronym for PubMed Identifier or more specifically PubMed Unique Identifier which is a unique number assigned to each PubMed Year 1975 ( MCMLXXV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. PMID is an Acronym for PubMed Identifier or more specifically PubMed Unique Identifier which is a unique number assigned to each PubMed Year 1992 ( MCMXCII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar) PMID is an Acronym for PubMed Identifier or more specifically PubMed Unique Identifier which is a unique number assigned to each PubMed Gestalt psychology (also Gestalt of the Berlin School) is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic Kurt Koffka ( Berlin, March 18, 1886 - Northampton, November 22, 1941) was born and educated in Berlin and earned Rudolf Arnheim ( July 15, 1904 &ndash June 9, 2007) was a German -born author art and Film theorist and perceptual psychologist
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