What was the main focus of Gestalt approach to problem solving? What kinds of problems were Gestalt psychologists mostly interested in?

What was the main focus of Gestalt approach to problem solving? What kinds of problems were Gestalt psychologists mostly interested in?

The main focus of Gestalt approach to problem solving was mainly about how people represent a problem in their mind and also how solving a problem involves a reorganization or reconstructing of this representation.

Gestalt approach to problem solving proposes that the success in solving a problem is influenced by how it is represented in the person's mind. For example while filling in a crossword puzzle people might use different cues/techniques on how to complete it. Therefore each of these different approaches and the ways of going about solving the problem involves a different way of representing it in the mind.

By taking the circle problem example (if the length of the circle's radius is r, what is the length of line x?) we can see that there are no mathematical calculations/equations needed. It is rather about 'perceiving' the object and 'representing' it in a different way. This process is called restructuring, and the Gestalt psychologist have named it that way. It is linked with insight- the sudden realization of a problem's solution without knowing whether one is getting closer to the solution all throughout the process of solving it.

Another types of problems that Gestalt psychologists were mostly interested in are the ones mentioned above; the insight problems. An example would be a traingle problem or the chain problem (the one we tried to solve in class). Gestalt psychologists assumed that people solving these problems experienced an insight because the solutions usually seemed to come to them ''all of a sudden''. Sadly this was not a case when we tried to solve the chain problem