Gestalt qualities

Gestalt qualities (Gestaltqualitäten in German) were introduced by the Austrian philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932). The remarkable essay "On Gestalt Qualities," published in 1890 by Ehrenfels has given a name to one of the most characteristic schools of scientific thought in our time and thereby established its existence formally. It is responsible for the word "Gestalt" having acquired citizenship in the English language; and even the term "Ehrenfels qualities" is encountered here and there in American psychological literature as a term designating Gestalt properties. The qualities were based on tests done by flashing lights for certain amounts of time. This discovery later led to the famous Gestalt effect discovered by Max Wertheimer. A formed Gestalt always is entire, complete structures with clearly defined contours. Quality “trans – positivity” manifested in the fast that the image of the whole remains even if all parts change in its material. But Ehrenfels did more than baptize the new movement. With great discernment he immediately alluded to many of the questions that the Gestalt problem raises in the minds of thoughtful theorists even today.

Beginning with a few remarks about the history of Gestalt psychology—because not all chapters of this history are generally known. In the eighties of the past century, psychologists in Europe were greatly disturbed by von Ehrenfels' claim that thousands of percepts have characteristics which cannot be derived from the characteristics of their ultimate components, the so-called sensations. Chords and melodies in hearing, the shape characteristics of visual objects, the roughness or the smoothness of tactual impressions, and so forth were used as examples. All these "Gestalt qualities" have one thing in common. When the physical stimuli in question are considerably changed, while their relations are kept constant, the Gestalt qualities remain about the same. But, At the time, it was generally assumed that the sensations involved are individually determined by their individual stimuli and must therefore change when these are greatly changed. Both positive and negative esthetic characteristics of the world around us, not only of ornaments, paintings, sculptures, tunes, and so forth, but also of trees, landscapes, houses, cars—and other persons—belong to this class. That relations between the sexes largely depend on specimens of the same class need hardly be emphasized. It is, therefore, not safe to deal with problems of psychology as though there were no such qualities. And yet, beginning with Ehrenfels himself, psychologists have not been able to explain their nature.

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