Wolfgang Köhler, Intelligence And Chimpanzees
Wolfgang Köhler was one of the most important representatives of famous Gestalt psychology. He was responsible for explaining one of the most complex subjects of this school: learning. What is curious is that many of his postulates are the fruit of a long, patient and fruitful observation of chimpanzees.
This great researcher lived at a time when people sought to provide more and more scientific bases for psychology. In North America, the behavioral school was gradually establishing itself. This current sought to validate only observable behaviors. Meanwhile, in Europe, Gestalt psychology, which also worked in the laboratory, was gaining ground, but seeking a phenomenological interpretation of the results.
Wolfgang Köhler was one of the pillars of Gestalt, along with Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka. Although not the most remarkable of this triumvirate, he provided valuable elements for the advancement of the new school. Here is therefore a general overview of his life and work.
The beginnings of Wolfgang Köhler
Wolfgang Köhler was born in Reval (Estonia) on January 21, 1887. He had a brother and several sisters. Her father was a teacher and always instilled in his children a love of knowledge and art. When Wolfgang was only 6 years old, his family moved to Germany, where the future researcher will remain for a large part of his life.
Wolfgang Köhler’s university education was unique and singular. He went through the universities of Tübingen, then Bonn and finally Berlin. During his career in higher education, he came into contact with different disciplines. He was particularly impressed with biology, physics and psychology. He obtained his doctorate in psychology in 1909 from the University of Berlin.
Recently graduated, he started working at the Psychological Institute in Frankfurt. First as an assistant, then as a teacher. It was there that he met Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka.
The work of the three will become the school of Gestalt. In 1912 he married the artist Thekla Achenbach. A year later he was appointed director of the Center for Research on Anthropomorphic Apes at the Tenerife Academy of Applied Sciences in Preussen. His whole life was going to change.
Watching chimpanzees in Tenerife
Wolfgang Köhler was the first to use chimpanzees as the basis for psychological study. Previously, only dogs and cats had been tested in terms of conditioning. Starting from the fact that apes were related to the human race, one of Köhler’s main goals was to see what their similarities were and where they differed from humans in terms of learning.
Based on his research, Wolfgang Köhler establishes the concept of learning by perception or internal vision, that is, sudden discernment based on a series of previous stimuli. He presented this concept in his book The Mentality of Apes , published in 1925. There he describes several of the experiments carried out in Tenerife.
As part of his studies, Köhler tried to prevent chimpanzees from accessing their food. He put tools at their disposal, which finally enabled them to overcome the obstacle and reach their food. The researcher therefore discovered that the great apes were able to solve the problem, but not in a linear fashion. In other words, there was a kind of steep jump in their reasoning and performance.
Köhler’s last years
During his stay in Tenerife, the First World War raged. Much speculation linked Köhler to espionage on behalf of the British. So in 1920 he retired to the island and returned to Berlin. At that time, his fame was growing and he was more and more in demand in academic centers all over the world.
Wolfgang Köhler spoke out publicly against National Socialism. Therefore, when World War II broke out, he had to emigrate to the United States because he feared for his life. There he was hired as a professor at prestigious universities such as Princeton and Dartmouth.
In 1959 he was named president of the American Psychological Association (APA).
Köhler died in 1967 in New Hampshire. Today, his concept of learning by perception is still valid in psychology. It should be noted that his best-known works are The Mentality of Apes (1921), Dynamics in Psychology (1940) , Gestalt psychology: an introduction to new concepts in modern psychology (1947) and Gestalt Psychology (1959).
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