Kurt Koffka

[6] In spite of the prevalence of law in his family, Kurt Koffka decided to pursue science as he was motivated by his maternal uncle, who was a biologist.

[7] Koffka was forced to alter his lifestyle after developing a heart condition called Coronary thrombosis.

[1] His time at the University of Edinburgh was crucial as he developed a greater understanding of the English language which was a valuable tool for spreading his message in the future.

[1] While studying at the University of Berlin, Koffka examined his personal colour vision in Willibald Nagel's physiological laboratory.

[1]  He was interested in visual perception due to his own red-green blindness, which led him to study color vision and after-images.

[1] Koffka completed his dissertation called Experimental-Untersuchungen zur Lehre von Rhythmus [Experimental studies on the teaching of rhythm] securing him his Doctor of Philosophy in 1908.

[10] In 1910, Koffka became an assistant to Friedrich Schumann at the Psychological Institute in Frankfurt on Main to study the perception of motion, alongside Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler.

[11] The University of Giessen assigned Koffka the Privatdozent title in 1911 and the ausserordentlicher while working with August Messer.

[6] Eighteen articles and six experimental works were completed over the twelve years that Koffka spent at Giessen.

[1] Koffka spent time at Professor Sommer's Psychiatric Clinic located in Giessen in the midst of World War I.

[1] In 1924, Koffka moved to the United States of America and retained a research professor position at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, beginning in 1927.

[1] In 1932, Uzbekistan was undergoing significant changes as a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, and in just over a decade saw a transition from a feudal aristocracy to a modern developing nation.

[1] It was at this time that Koffka traveled there to join others in researching the impact of the rapid pace of social, cultural, and economic development on affected individuals' cognition; the new generation was the first in Uzbek history to be fully literate and receive a formal education.

[13] Koffka gained his initial interest in Gestalt psychology after participating in Wertheimer's phi phenomenon study.

In 1910, Kurt Koffka worked alongside Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the Psychological Institute in Frankfurt.

This later becomes essential to theories of Gestalt psychology which convey that complete perception is more meaningful than its individual parts put together.

[16] Gestalt principle of similarity establishes that people tend to categorize objects that share the same traits into a group.

[14] The article focused on describing how Gestalt psychology studies various perceptual phenomena using different theories from existing ones.

[17] At the time, many subjects such as culture, ecology, evolution, emotion, psychology, knowledge, physiology had been treated as their own independent fields with no connection to one another.

While behaviourists believe that art naturally evokes an emotional response, Koffka argued that the previous associations must exist to understand that redness for example means passion.

[14] The article focused on how Gestalt psychology describes three main points which are sensation, association and attention with a different scope than other existing theories.

[19] The second listed concept of association is acknowledged by Koffka as the primary factor that decides what is coming and going in regards to our ideas.

Veridical perception states that objects people see in the environment will have relatively consistent characteristics such as size, and color.

The Gestalt principle of proximity
The Gestalt principle of similarity