| German psychologist and cofounder, with Wolfgang
Köhler and Max Wertheimer, of the Gestalt school of psychology.
Koffka was associated with the University of Giessen (1911–24)
and served as a subject (1912), along with Köhler,
in experiments on perception conducted by Wertheimer. Their
findings led Koffka, Wertheimer, and Köhler to stress
the holistic approach that psychological phenomena cannot
be interpreted as combinations of elements: parts derive
their meaning from the whole, and people perceive complex
entities rather than their elements.
Koffka conducted a great amount of experimental work, but
he is perhaps best known for his systematic application
of Gestalt principles to a wide range of questions. One
of his major works, Die Grundlagen der psychischen Entwicklung
(1921; The Growth of the Mind), applied the Gestalt viewpoint
to child psychology and argued that infants initially experience
organized wholes in the barely differentiated world about
them. He first addressed American psychologists directly
in the article “Perception: An Introduction to the
Gestalt Theory” (1922).
In 1924 Koffka began a series of visits to several American
universities, and in 1927 he was appointed professor of
psychology at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., where
he remained for the rest of his life. A major work, Principles
of Gestalt Psychology (1935), dealt with a wide range of
applied psychology but contributed mainly to the study of
perception, memory, and learning.
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