Title: Phi is not beta, and why Wertheimer’s discovery launched the Gestalt revolution
Abstract: Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), the founder of the Gestalt School of Psychology, published a monograph on the perception of apparent motion in 1912, which initiated a new direction for a great deal of subsequent perceptual theory and research. Wertheimer's research was inspired by a serendipitous observation of a pure apparent movement, which he called the ϕ-phenomenon to distinguish it from optimal apparent movement (β), which resembles real movement. Wertheimer called his novel observation 'pure' because it was perceived in the absence of any object being seen to change its position in space. The ϕ-phenomenon, as well as the best conditions for seeing it, were not described clearly in this monograph, leading to considerable subsequent confusion about its appearance and occurrence. We review the history leading to the discovery of the ϕ-phenomenon, and then describe: (i) a likely source for the confusion evident in most contemporary research on the ϕ-phenomenon; (ii) the best conditions for seeing the ϕ-phenomenon; (iii) new conditions that provide a particularly vivid ϕ-phenomenon; and (iv) two lines of thought that may provide explanations of the ϕ-phenomenon and also distinguish ϕ from β.
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-08-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref', 'pubmed']
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Cited By Count: 124
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