42
3 Gestalt
there is something special about a picture or narrative which the brain is adept
at holding firmly together in one piece. You might lose the cohesive unity of a
complex abstraction, but a picture or story remains firm and steady in mind.
Moreover, as discussed in the first section of this chapter, human memory for
pictures seems to be almost limitless, and the same is true for stories.
The organization in mind of a narrative follows the same principle: If a story
is complex, you recall the gist and are able to access separate episodes at will. It
is similar with a picture, such as a landscape. You’re aware of the general plan,
and by moving your eyes in what are called saccades, you have immediate access
to any specific region of interest. That is the brain’s special way of overseeing
and administering Gestalts.
People in certain professions can be trained to recognize and manipulate
huge Gestalts in a very narrow domain in which they are specialized. For
instance, it is well known that chess grand masters are able to understand and
recollect an entire chessboard configuration in a glance. The knowledge they
acquire in one look at the board is of an entirely different kind from what you
or I would gain. In one play of the game, they are not attending merely to the
chess pieces around them, but to the comprehensive situation over the entire
board. All of it is in the focus of current awareness, at the same moment.
An important practical concern of psychology is the measurement of intelligence. A number of different measures have been devised, but no test has
ever been created to measure the ability to do Gestalt problem solving—that
is, solving problems in which holding an entire image in mind at one time
is crucial. It is quite plausible that this measure constitutes the decisive factor
in the ability to solve difficult problems in an innovative and creative fashion,
especially in the sciences.
When a person is able to view a scientific problem as a whole, in one
comprehensive picture, it is like a forest warden sitting in a high tower, and
from his prominent position being able to keep watch over a vast region of
parkland. It is a significant fact that people aren’t all equal in the size of Gestalts
they are able to generate and hold in mind. It would therefore be of considerable
interest and importance to develop a psychological instrument for measuring
that factor. It is likely that this aspect of mental endowment plays a critical role
in overall intellectual capacity.
As our species continues to evolve, it is probable that the capacity to hold and
manipulate progressively larger Gestalts will increase. Such a development is
inevitable, because the power to think in larger, more comprehensive Gestalts
is a very important adaptation for man as we head into an era of steadily
more complex science and technology. If the faculty of holding larger Gestalts
3 Gestalt
there is something special about a picture or narrative which the brain is adept
at holding firmly together in one piece. You might lose the cohesive unity of a
complex abstraction, but a picture or story remains firm and steady in mind.
Moreover, as discussed in the first section of this chapter, human memory for
pictures seems to be almost limitless, and the same is true for stories.
The organization in mind of a narrative follows the same principle: If a story
is complex, you recall the gist and are able to access separate episodes at will. It
is similar with a picture, such as a landscape. You’re aware of the general plan,
and by moving your eyes in what are called saccades, you have immediate access
to any specific region of interest. That is the brain’s special way of overseeing
and administering Gestalts.
People in certain professions can be trained to recognize and manipulate
huge Gestalts in a very narrow domain in which they are specialized. For
instance, it is well known that chess grand masters are able to understand and
recollect an entire chessboard configuration in a glance. The knowledge they
acquire in one look at the board is of an entirely different kind from what you
or I would gain. In one play of the game, they are not attending merely to the
chess pieces around them, but to the comprehensive situation over the entire
board. All of it is in the focus of current awareness, at the same moment.
An important practical concern of psychology is the measurement of intelligence. A number of different measures have been devised, but no test has
ever been created to measure the ability to do Gestalt problem solving—that
is, solving problems in which holding an entire image in mind at one time
is crucial. It is quite plausible that this measure constitutes the decisive factor
in the ability to solve difficult problems in an innovative and creative fashion,
especially in the sciences.
When a person is able to view a scientific problem as a whole, in one
comprehensive picture, it is like a forest warden sitting in a high tower, and
from his prominent position being able to keep watch over a vast region of
parkland. It is a significant fact that people aren’t all equal in the size of Gestalts
they are able to generate and hold in mind. It would therefore be of considerable
interest and importance to develop a psychological instrument for measuring
that factor. It is likely that this aspect of mental endowment plays a critical role
in overall intellectual capacity.
As our species continues to evolve, it is probable that the capacity to hold and
manipulate progressively larger Gestalts will increase. Such a development is
inevitable, because the power to think in larger, more comprehensive Gestalts
is a very important adaptation for man as we head into an era of steadily
more complex science and technology. If the faculty of holding larger Gestalts