8- Gestalt Approaches

Question 1

What was psychology based on in the early 1900s?

Answer 1

Behaviourism

Question 2

How was research done mostly when psychology was based on behaviourism?

Answer 2

On animals

Question 3

When did the Gestalt approach come about?

Answer 3

In the 1920s

Question 4

What did the Gestalt approach stem from?

Answer 4

Behaviourism

Question 5

What is the ultimate goal of problem solving?

Answer 5

Insight

Question 6

What are 2 key concepts of the Gestalt approach?

Answer 6

Restructuring and incubation

Question 7

Who was studied by Kohler, 1925?

Answer 7

Sultan the ape

Question 8

What was Sultan the ape capable of?

Answer 8

Sudden restructuring of the problem where the solution suddenly occurs

Question 9

What was Thorndike’s law of effect?

Answer 9

Any behaviour followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated and any behaviour followed by negative consequences is likely to be stopped

Question 10

What did Thorndike’s law of effect lead to?

Answer 10

Operant conditioning

Question 11

Who investigated insight and how?

Answer 11

Kounios and Beeman, 2009 by an EEG/fMRI study

Question 12

What was done in the insight investigation?

Answer 12

Participants pressed a button when they thought they’d achieved insight while researchers saw a spike in neural activity

Question 13

What was found in the investigation of insight?

Answer 13

There was a spike in the parahippocampal gyrus neural activity milliseconds before participants thought they’d achieved insight

Question 14

What was reported when insight was investigated?

Answer 14

Whether the solution was developed gradually (analytical) or came suddenly (insight)

Question 15

What was the problem with insight?

Answer 15

Gestalt psychologists described insight but didn’t explain mechanisms behind it

Question 16

Who came up with representational change theory?

Answer 16

Ohlsson, 1992

Question 17

What is the idea behind representational change theory?

Answer 17

Restructure our problem representation to allow retrieval of necessary operators

Question 18

What are the 3 processes involved in representational change theory?

Answer 18

Elaboration, constraint relaxation, re-encoding

Question 19

What is elaboration?

Answer 19

Addition of new information

Question 20

What is constraint relaxation?

Answer 20

Rules are reinterpreted

Question 21

What is re-encoding?

Answer 21

There is an ‘error’ in info so we have the right info but it’s wrong

Question 22

Why do we incubate?

Answer 22

We attempt a task but hit an ‘impasse’

Question 23

What is incubation an alternative to?

Answer 23

Restructuring

Question 24

What do we do when we incubate?

Answer 24

Do a different task while the subconscious mind continues to work on the problem

Question 25

What happens when we have an inappropriate solution to a problem?

Answer 25

Solving strategies are forgotten so we then select a new set of more successful operators

Question 26

What is the solution triggered by after there is an inappropriate solution?

Answer 26

External events

Question 27

What 3 factors did Silveira et al find may influence incubation effects?

Answer 27

Task presentation, preparation time, inconsistent results

Question 28

What effect did task presentation have?

Answer 28

Higher interactivity gave a greater success rate

Question 29

What effect did preparation time have?

Answer 29

Better incubation effects from longer preparation time

Question 30

What reduces the incubation effect?

Answer 30

Filling incubation period with more cognitively demanding tasks

Question 31

Why were results inconsistent?

Answer 31

No clear effects of incubation in any condition

Question 32

What was the limitation of Silveira et al's experiment?

Answer 32

Wasn't recorded whether or not participants occupied themselves with a different cognitive task