<Ul> <Li> Psychology portal </Li> </Ul> <Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Gestalt psychology or gestaltism (German: Gestalt (ɡəˈʃtalt) "shape, form") is a philosophy of mind of the Berlin School of experimental psychology . Gestalt psychology is an attempt to understand the laws behind the ability to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in an apparently chaotic world . The central principle of gestalt psychology is that the mind forms a global whole with self - organizing tendencies . The assumed physiological mechanisms on which Gestalt theory rests are poorly defined and support for their existence is lacking . The Gestalt theory of perception has been criticized as being descriptive of the end products of perception without providing much insight into the processes that lead to perception . In the introduction to a 2016 special issue of the journal Vision Research on Gestalt perception, the authors concluded that "even though they study the same phenomena as earlier Gestaltists, there is little theoretical coherence . What happened to the Gestalt school that always aspired to provide a unified vision of psychology? Perhaps there is, in fact, little that holds the classic phenomena of Gestalt psychology together ." </P>

​which statement would a gestalt psychologist most likely agree with