ABSTRACT
Max Wertheimer had by now spent years seeking a new theoretical system for analyzing psychological phenomena that would be adequate to their inherent nature and complexity. Although he drew upon many resources in the development of his perspective, a major one was Christian von Ehrenfels's l890 paper, "On Gestalt Qualities." During 1910, the year in which he turned thirty, Wertheimer managed with his research on apparent motion to demonstrate certain fundamental aspects of Gestalt theory in precise experimental work. Like Wertheimer, both Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka were disenchanted with the static tone of psychology in the first decade of the twentieth century, and were captivated by Wertheimer's Gestalt interpretation of apparent motion. Köhler was the first to respond to the need to publish the ideas of Gestalt theory as an alternative to the older reductionist psychologies.
