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p Gestaltpsychologie is a psychological school which is even more radically opposed to associationism. Its representatives are concerned mainly with perceptive, mnemonic and intellectual phenomena. We will not go beyond the limits of the interpretation of creative processes proposed by Gestaltpsychologists (note that in discussing creativity Gestaltpsychologists avoided the term “phantasy” in the same way as the Wiirzburg scholars and Selz).

p Gestaltpsychologie has two essential peculiarities:" first, there is its conspicuous tendency for a holistic approach, i.e., a desire to explain individual phenomena on the basis of the properties of the whole; second, there is a tendency to unify the laws of psychological processes. Essentially, there is every -. reason to regard these tendencies as progressive, yet, as we I will show later, their concrete realization evokes objections. r In describing the behavior of monkeys in problematic situa- ; lions Wolfgang Kohler offers examples of “creative” acts on this evolutionary level: a monkey uses a stick as means to reach a bait; it builds a complex pyramid out of several t boxes. All these acts did not occur in the monkey’s former "t experience, hence they are a kind of invention. Kohler explains 1 these phenomena by reorganization of the perceptive images, * otherwise, by the improvement of the Gestalt (an integral ! psychic image) which was imperfect when a problem situation 4 emerged and which later on was considerably improved owing s to the inner laws of the psychic field.

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p The views of creativity expressed by the Gestaltpsychologists were rendered in detail in Max Wertheimer’s Productive Thinking which, on the one hand, summarized his experience, and on the other, appeared to be his program. In analysing the results of his experiments and observations as well as the discoveries made by Galileo and Einstein (the latter being his personal acquaintance), Wertheimer emphasizes that in the course of thinking man apprehends the peculiarities of the structure and the demands of a problem situation which cause him to change the situation toward its improvement, and notice flaws, "zones of violation", etc., in relying on the realization of the general, integral picture. This enables him to regroup and expose the structural centers, to realize the role, structural place and significance of mental acts, to apprehend the results of changes wrought in the structural chain of command, and, finally, to reveal the conditions for discriminating and transferring certain features (274, 132, 137, 142).

p Wertheimer formulated the following requirements to be met by the people involved in creative acts: they do not have to be constrained by the habits they have developed; they do not have to work mechanically, but must pay attention, first and foremost, to the problem as a whole: they must approach its solution with an "open mind" (without any prejudices); they must determine the interdependence between the structure and the problem, getting down to "its roots" (274, 237). In mental acts Wertheimer regards the posing of problems as the most essential precondition. He emphasizes that it is impossible to make an adequate description of the process of creative thinking either in the terms of traditional logic or in the terms of the trial and error conception which have never posed the question of the prerequisites for mental acts, of their correspondence with a problem situation, and of the force that causes man to adopt one or another guideline for his creative search (274, 238-239). Of special value is Wertheimer’s emphasis of the necessity to reorganize the material and rearrange the system of knowledge for achieving a desired result.

p The Gestaltpsychologists interpret the laws of creativity as particular cases of the laws of the perceptive field, as a shift from a situation characterized by the presence of structural tension to a situation characterized by a structural harmony. This shift is effected by the dynamics of the psychic field which is mainly referred to as the Prdgnanz principle, the latter asserting that the field itself is striving for ultimate simplicity and clarity of structure as much as its limits allow it (274, 38 238-239). Creativity, therefore, is essentially a self-regulatory process.

p Wertheimer’s conception has a number of deep inner contradictions. First, it is unreasonable to make any demands on the subject involved in creativity as long as the creativity itself and its results, according to his interpretation, are stipulated by the forces of the psychic field, the subject turning out to be an extraneous factor. As K. A. Slavskaya, a Soviet investigator into thinking, acutely observed if the problem itself is striving toward its solution, the "subject’s part will be reduced to completely senseless efforts: to something resembling a passionate desire to clarify a problem, etc." (87, 114). Furthermore, how can it be possible to explain from these positions various negative phenomena in thinking, for example, paralogisms, alogisms, contradictory conclusions, or absence of any solutions? If the inner laws of the psychic field are really intolerable to any "imperfect structures", they should automatically overcome every obstacle.

p Especially objectionable seems to be the entire hypothesis of the dynamic structural field which is based on the alleged dynamics of the "self-organizing forces" in human brain inconsistent both physiologically and psychologically. This hypothesis was brought forward at first to explain perceptive phenomena. Then it was mechanically applied to mnemonic and intellectual phenomena. The Gestaltpsychologists’ assertions about the directed changes of the memory traces have been subject to criticism a great number of times (78). In the course of several experimental series which studied the reproduction of one and the same material we showed that concrete facts disprove the hypothesis of the directed transformation of mnemonic traces (71; 80).

p Characteristically, Einstein was not satisfied with the explanation of creative thinking proposed by Wertheimer, which was reflected in a letter written with his usual tact to Jacques Hadamard: "Professor Max Wertheimer has tried to investigate the distinction, between mere associating or combining of reproducible elements and between understanding (organischen Begreifen); I cannot judge how far his psychological analysis catches the essential point" (citation from 159, 33).

p Two main lines were adopted for the development of the Gestaltpsychological ideas in the study of mental activity: all-round experiments aimed at studying various aspects of “problem-solving” and the elaboration of problems of visual perception, in particular, clarification of their role (visualisation) 39 in mental processes. The first line was realized in the experimental works of Karl Dunker. We have already noted that the theoretical conceptions advanced by Kohler and Wertheimer could not explain erratic phenomena and the absence of solutions. Dunker was trying to fill this theoretical gap by making a detailed analysis of the possible reasons for various hindrances that arise in the search for the correct solution.

p Although in his interpretation of the experimental data Dunker referred to the classical Gestaltpsychological conceptions, he has introduced an entirely new notion of "functional fixedness" which holds that the qualities of an object handled by the subject will appear different to him, depending on both subjective and objective reasons. The qualities associated with an object’s functional assignment are more conspicuous and fixed, which confines it to strictly specific functions. In order to assign a new function to the object it is necessary to overcome this functional fixedness.

p The most important factor in Dunker’s work is, in our view, his interest in the negative phenomena of mental acts, which were ignored by early Gestaltpsychologists. His research was further developed by the investigators concerned with problemsolving which is a traditional aspect of the psychology of mental activity. Of special importance here are. the views expressed by "Dutch psychologist Van de Geer who was one of those who pioneered in making a distinction between open and closed problems (see Chapter III).

p In Van de Geer’s conception a great role is attributed to the teaching of imaginary situations, which consist of symbols as distinct from real situations, yet correspond to them to a certain extent. Van de Geer placed the main emphasis on the activities of the subject involved in problem-solving. To find a new aspect in the imaginary problem situation, the observer must take a different point of view of it. Yet a new aspect will not show itself all of its own, if the subject is the passive contemplator waiting for what will happen. The subject has to “unfold” the new aspect, he has to "think it out" (159, 133).

p Thus, there is an obvious tendency to accept a personality’s active role as an essential factor in problem-solving, notwithstanding the simultaneous adoption of the Gestaltpsychologists’ laws of the psychic field. In his thinking a person elucidates an object’s various relations with other objects of thought in the same way as a subject may perceive his object’s various facets in regarding it (159, 134, 201-202). And although the “unfolding” of the object of thought takes place in an imaginary field, the latter is invariably 40 connected with the reality. Consequently, imagination derives, essentially, from a subject’s interaction with the reality around him. The notion of "structural field", too, played a great role in the works of French scholars Boirel (129), Vidal (268) and Rouquette (239).

p The line of investigation developed by Dunker and Van de Geer proves that for explaining experimental facts the researchers had to adopt radically new ideas which in many ways ran counter to the traditional Gestaltpsychological conception of creativity.

p Another tendency which also takes root in the Gestaltpsychological views and which has visualization as its founding principle may be regarded as a certain return to the orthodoxal views Chared by Kohler and Wertheimer. The most remarkable representative of this tendency, Rudolf Arnheim, is the author of several books on art and creativity, among which his fundamental book Visual Thinking (1970) deserves the greatest attention as it focuses on the problems of creativity. In this work Arnheim has made an attempt to substantiate his thesis on the unity of the laws of thinking and perception and of the leading role of visualization in creativity. Arnheim does not base his conclusions on experimental or clinical data, but relies on the vast literary material; he has used various works by philologists, art critics, physiologists, historians of mathematics, cyberneticians, and specialists in the sphere of automatic reading devices, etc.

p “Artistic activity," Arnheim writes, "is a form of reasoning, in which perceiving and thinking are indivisibly intertwined.... The remarkable mechanisms by which the senses understand the environment are all but identical with the operations described by the psychology of thinking. Inversely, there was much evidence that truly productive thinking in whatever area of cognition takes place in the realm of imagery" (111, V).

p Essentially, this idea is neither novel nor original. Way back in the early 40s Susanne K. Langer wrote in her Philosophy in a New Key: "Unless the Gesta/Hpsychologists are right in their belief that Gestaltung is of the very nature of perception, I do not know how the hiatus between perception and conception, sense-organ and mind-organ, chaotic stimulus and logic response, is ever to be closed and welded" (200, 90).

p Arnheim has closed the hiatus rather easily. In his opinion, the perceptive mechanisms perform "active exploration, selection, grasping the essentials, simplification, abstraction, analysis and synthesis, completion, correction, comparison, problem solving, as well a.s combining, separating, putting in context" (111, 13). 41 Seemingly, it is difficult to add anything to the listed creative operations, with all of them being active already on the level of perceptions.

p In singling out the visual perceptions from all the other types, Arnheim emphasizes that while the solution of i,ny problem suggests a reorganization of a problem situation, this procedure is very simple in the case of visual perceptions: sometimes it may be effected by a mere shift of the center of orientation. The visual perceptions are invariably characterized by closing hiatuses which is a phenomenon typical of intellectual behavior; problem-solving is also fully comparable with the perceptions because in both cases an important role is attributed to grasping conspicuous features, organising data, and changing accent in their relationship. Finally, Arnheim has made an especially detailed analysis of abstraction which, he believes, not only presents itself in perceptions, but also, owing to them, becomes possible (this aspect is discussed in detail in Chapter V).

p Arnheim is fully consistent in his one-sided interpretation of creative, phenomena. He asserts the enormous superiority of the visual method ("visual medium") over the other ways of cognition (111, 232); he associates the cosmological conception of the shapes of the planetary orbits with the initial “simple” Gestaltpsychological circumference manifesting itself even in children’s drawings (111, 275-277); he believes that a visual analysis of the "Pythagorean figure" may be sufficient to prove that the square of the hypothenuse equals the sum ’of the squares of the two other sides (111, 224); in ascribing the creative tendencies to all instances of the mind, he has made a surprising conclusion that "the human brain is not suited for mechanical reproduction" (111, 298). There is hardly any need to prove the inconclusiveness of all these assertions. Suffice it to consider just one example in order to disprove theoretically Arnheim’s conceptions. Arnheim maintains that it is difficult to perceive the fact of Earth’s attraction "because no sensory experience suggests this interpretation" (111, 59). Yet, Newton’s discovery runs counter to the perceptive data, which puts Arnheim’s example in conflict with his own theory.

p In a number of researches, contemporary psychologists have been focusing their attention on the problem of visualization, although they interpret it differently. Thus, according to the theory advanced by American psychologist L. E. Walkup creative personalities proceed from accidental discovery of their ability to visualize to its consummate development, which facilitates greatly the operations entailed by thinking. Consequently, visualization stands 42 forth as a method ensuring efficient mental rearrangement of the available information. This brings us back to the associationist conception of recombination.

p Newell, Shaw and Simon have made a highly realistic and objective assessment of the role of visualization in a creative process: "Often we deliberately construct visual representations of abstract relations... For example, when we represent something as an arrow, we determine the order in which the items connected by an arrow will be called into attention... If we represent something as a line, we are likely—because that is the way our visual imagery operates—to impute to it the property of continuity.

p “Herein lie both the power and the danger of imagery as a tool of thought. The richer the properties of the system of imagery we employ, the more useful is the imagery in manipulating the representation, but the more danger there is that we will draw conclusions based on properties of the system of imagery that the object represented doesn’t possess" (221,101-103). In our opinion, this assessment of the role of visualization for creativity proves the groundlessness of various claims expressed by those psychologists who identify visualization with a theoretical conception which can reveal the nature of creativity. If we regard visualization as a concrete practical method of mental activity, we find that in a number of instances it will undeniably contribute to creativity along with some other methods (for example, analogies). At the same time, the use of the notion of “visualization” as an explanatory conception creates serious theoretical difficulties and calls for additional assumptions, as is, for example, the case with the hypothesis of recombination.

p As we have already noted, there are a number of contemporary representatives of the Gestaltpsychologie who supplement the orthodoxal hypotheses of the "psychic field" with other assumptions, thus showing a lackadaisical approach to the theoretical interpretation of data.

p The psychologists who seek to combine Gestaltpsychologie with associationism, in particular, claim that the insight does not always have to precede a solution, but it may either coincide with it or even follow it. This may suggest that the insight is nothing other than a ready result of the behaviorist trial-and-error mechanisms^ although they take place beyond the threshold of consciousness; it is for this reason that we experience insight as an unexpected illumination.

The tendency to supplement the Gestaltpsychologists’ traditional theory with various conceptions borrowed from other, at times, 43 polar, psychological systems offers every proof that even the advocates of Gestaltpsychologie come to realize the inadequacy of their premises.