Read the following case carefully and answer the questions that follow: Insightful learning owes its existence to the Gestalt school of psychology. Gestalt is a pattern, a configuration of the form…

Read the following case carefully and answer the questions that follow:

Insightful learning owes its existence to the Gestalt school of psychology. Gestalt is a pattern, a configuration of the form of apprehending a stimulus situation. The situation should be perceived as a whole instead of separating it into components or elements and learning part by part. Kohler and other advocates of insightful learning have stated that the perception of the relationship between different parts of the visual field and the goal plays a significant part in learning. He carried out experiments with chimpanzees in the years 1913-1917. In his experiment, Sultan perceived the whole situation in an organized way and expressed the "Aha" experience. Further, he also stated that learning is proceeding through a new organization of the perceptual field, and learning by insight takes a single attempt to solve a problem. But this is not the fact in reality. In most cases, we find that learning is a gradual process and the error reduces gradually which the insight theory is not ready to accept. So, insight is not the only method of learning.

Practice is also essential for learning. But practice is unacceptable to Gestalt psychologists. However, it can be said that in every complicated situation, the only type of learning that is involved is insightful learning. Insightful learning can be of two types; learning by foresight and learning by hindsight. When the solution to the problem comes at once in the first attempt without actually trying the situation, it is called foresight. When the solution comes after trying with the elements present in the learning field, it is known as Hindsight. Many scientific interventions including the theory of hydrodynamics, the invention of benzene, the invention of tyres, etc. were carried out through insight learning.

Questions: a. What is insightful learning theory? Can every type of learning be defined based on insight? b. What are the Gestalt principles of perceptual organizations? Explain with suitable examples. c. How are problems solved by insight? Explain based on the experiment. d. What is the difference between learning by foresight and learning by hindsight? Clarify on the basis of experiment.