Introduction Imagine the following situation: A young man, let’s call him Knut, is sitting at his desk reading some papers which he needs to complete a psychology assignment. In his right hand he holds a cup of coffee. With his left one he reaches for a bag of sweets without removing the focus of his eyes from the paper. Suddenly he stares up to the ceiling of his room and asks himself: “What i...

The aim of this paper is to sketch the major aspects of Gestaltpsychologie: Wertheimer‘s factors, global v. local factors, isomorphism, auto-organisation, Prägnanz as singularity and as a tendency towards stability. While Gestaltpsychologie as a school no longer exists, its lesson is yet seminal and can inspire many developments of contemporary cognitive psychology. Few examples are here illust...

Cognitive Psychology Patrick Rabbitt Martin Conway, Gillian Cohen and Nicola Stanhope, ' On the very long term retention of knowledge acquired through formal education: twelve years of cognitive psychology'. Journal of Experimental Psychology (General), 120, 4 (1991), 395-409. Among the most interesting questions about human memory that all intelligent people vainly ask of psychologists are: ca...