Gestalt
psychology is the
school that puts
emphasis on humans perceiving
objects and
patterns as
whole units instead of disconnected collections of
impressions. The
idea of parts being seen as more than a
sum of their parts was
radical from the
perspective of more
traditional Structuralist and
Functionalist psychology.
This school of psychology was pioneered by German psychologists Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka around 1914. The school was dissolved under pressure after the Nazis came to power in the 1930's. Hitler's dim view of intellectuals made the United States the final destination for many of the Gestalt school.
The most famous piece of Gestalt theory is the phi phenomenon experiment devised by Max Wertheimer. Despite the short lifespan of the Gestalt school much of the theory they tested is still influential in psychology especially in the study of learning and perception.