German psychologist, known as one of the co-founders, along with Wolfgang Köhler and Max Wertheimer, of the school of Gestalt psychology. Born March 18, 1886 in Berlin (Germany).
Koffka was associated with the University of Hesse in 1911-1924 and participated as a test subject, as well as W. Köhler, in experiments on the study of perception, which were conducted by M. Wertheimer. The results of these experiments led Koffka, Koehler, and Wertheimer to develop a holistic approach. According to the principles of this approach, psychological phenomena cannot be interpreted as a combination of individual elements: a part receives its properties from the properties of the whole, and a person perceives the whole rather than its parts.
K. Koffka conducted a large number of experimental studies, but he is most likely known in connection with the systematic application of the principles of Gestalt psychology to solving a wide range of problems. In one of his major works, Die Grundlagen der psychischen Entwicklung (1921, The Development of the Psyche), he applied the Gestal psychology point of view to questions of child psychology and proved that children initially perceive the world holistically and weakly differentiate objects around them.
In 1922, he addressed the American audience directly for the first time in the article Perception: An Introduction to the Gestalt Theory. In 1924, K. Koffka visited many American universities, and in 1927 he was appointed professor of psychology at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. There he remained for the rest of his life.
In 1935 he published his major work, Principles of Gestalt Psychology. In it, he considers the widest range of issues of applied psychology, but mainly it was devoted to the study of perception, memory and learning.
K. Koffka died on November 22, 1941 in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA.