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GESTALT
n. pl. ge·stalts or Ge·stalts or ge·stalt·en or Ge·stalt·en (-shtält′n, -shtôlt′n, -stält′n, -stôlt′n)
A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole
that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts.
[German, shape, from Middle High German, from past participle of stellen, to place, from Old High German;
see stel- in Indo-European roots.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Gestalt (ɡəˈʃtælt) ... n, pl -stalts or -stalten (-ˈʃtæltən)
1. (Psychology) (sometimes not capital) a perceptual pattern or structure possessing qualities as a whole
that cannot be described merely as a sum of its parts. See also Gestalt psychology
[C20: German: form, from Old High German stellen to shape]
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
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ge•stalt (gəˈʃtɑlt, -ˈʃtɔlt, -ˈstɑlt, -ˈstɔlt) ... n., pl. -stalts, -stal•ten (-ˈʃtɑl tn, -ˈʃtɔl-, -ˈstɑl-, -ˈstɔl-)
Psychol. (sometimes cap.)
a form or configuration having properties that cannot be derived by the summation of its component parts.
[1920–25; < German: figure, form]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991
by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Gestalt psychology ......... From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The concept of gestalt was first introduced in philosophy and psychology in 1890 by Christian von Ehrenfels
(a member of the School of Brentano). The idea of gestalt has its roots in theories by David Hume, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Immanuel Kant, David Hartley, and Ernst Mach. Max Wertheimer's unique contribution
was to insist that the "gestalt" is perceptually primary, defining the parts it was composed from, rather than
being a secondary quality that emerges from those parts, as von Ehrenfels's earlier Gestalt-Qualität had been.
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