Esra Mungan | Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey (original) (raw)

Papers by Esra Mungan

Memory & Cognition, May 1, 1993

New Ideas in Psychology

New Ideas in Psychology, 2023

This paper will discuss whether there are chances for a paradigm shift, i.e., a shift away from t... more This paper will discuss whether there are chances for a paradigm shift, i.e., a shift away from the (almost without much thought) taken-for-granted sequential, from piece-to-whole mainstream understanding of a cognitivist, now almost 70-year old information processing perspective to a perspective that takes as its starting point the whole, and hence meaning. The whole may stand for an object as embedded in its immediately salient as well as inconspicuous environment, where parts cannot be made sense of without knowing and understanding their roles in the larger configurations. It may stand for an organism or an organismic collectivity as embedded in its environment, a person or a collectivity of people in their embedded immediate and phenomenal field, which we will also not understand unless we understand their larger environmental, societal and cultural embeddedness. In today's scientific climate where the mainstream information-processing perspective is serving as an unchallenged, often hidden assumption within neuroscience and computer science, I will look for recent, promising developments which might nonetheless be paving the road to a perspective so long ago proposed by the Gestaltists yet somehow “lost in translation”. In that sense, Gestalt theory, which till today has been widely distorted as a theory that talks about ‘a bunch of grouping principles in (static) vision’, is the very first dynamical theory within the psychological sciences that meticulously proposed this with a firm philosophical grounding, something that is ever more missing within theory building in psychology.

New Ideas in Psychology, 2023

Nesne-Psikoloji Dergisi, 2020

Öz Bu makalede Geştalt kuramının kurucularının, eserlerinde dile getirdikleri, hem o dönem ama öz... more Öz Bu makalede Geştalt kuramının kurucularının, eserlerinde dile getirdikleri, hem o dönem ama özellikle de bugün için çok kritik olan kimi çalışmaları ve önermeleri odağa alındı. Makalenin başlıca amacı, son yarım asırdır son derece eksik ve hatta hatalı içeriklerle sunulan bu kuramın aslında ne kadar çarpıcı ve mevcut verilerimizi bambaşka şekilde, üstelik artık birbirinden kopuk değil, tersine birbiriyle ilişkilendirilmiş olarak anlamlandırabileceğimizi göstermektir. Makalenin birinci bölümünde, Geştalt kuramın Max Wertheimer'ın 1912 tarihli "phi fenomeni" makalesiyle doğuşu, 1922'de kuramcıları tarafından kurulan Psychologische Forschungen dergisiyle giderek etki gücünü arttırması ve ardından Nazi Almanyası döneminde hem yoğun sansür hem hayatlarının tehlikeye girmesi nedeniyle tüm kuramcıların Almanya'yı terk etmek zorunda kalıp ABD'ye geçmesiyle kimi bakış farklılıkları ve kavrayış eksiklikleriyle karşılaşması aktarılmaktadır. Makalenin ikinci bölümünde ise kuramın ana önermeleri ele alınmaktadır. Tüm bu konular hayli kapsamlı olduğundan, kuramın çok daha az bilinen ancak algı çalışmaları kadar ilginç bellek ve 'üretken' düşünmeye dair çalışmaları ve önermeleri ise ayrı iki makalede ele alınacaktır. Dolayısıyla bu makale, üçlü bir serinin ilki olarak okunmalıdır. Abstract This article focuses on the contributions of the founders of Gestalt theory, not only for the high value they carried even back then, but also for the strong relevance they have today. The main purpose is to point to the deficient, even wrong transmission of this perspective particularly in the past 50 years and to highlight its potential to connect the immense amount of accumulated but disconnected scientific facts and pieces within psychology as of today. The first part of this article discusses Max Wertheimer's important 1912 "phi phenomenon" article, and recounts the Gestalt theorists' launch of their influential journal Psychologische Forschungen in 1922, the rise of the oppressive and life-threatening Nazi regime in Germany, and the resulting emmigration of the Gestalt founders to the US where they had to face a radically different perspective to psychology. The second part discusses the main postulates of the theory. Since this requires a rather wide scope of analysis, the present article is the first of a series of three articles, focusing on how the movement emerged, its main theoretical perspective, and its work on perception. In a second and third article (in preparation), I will review their intriguing research and conceptualizations on memory and productive thinking, respectively. Hence, the current article should be read as the first in a series of three.

Earlier studies have shown that harmonic (e.g., Bigand & Pineau, 1997) as well as tonal e... more Earlier studies have shown that harmonic (e.g., Bigand & Pineau, 1997) as well as tonal expectations (e.g., Marmel et al., 2008; Marmel et al., 2011) influence pitch processing. The ending of a melody fragment either with full or half-cadence affects the sensitivity towards pitch deviations. We investigated the influence of such knowledge-based expectations in makam melody fragments, which is a musical system that includes more minute pitch intervals (see App. for makam intervals) than Western music. We showed that despite the narrower pitch intervals of makam music, both tonal (Exp. 1a) and makam (Exp. 1b) contexts influence processing of pitch in a similar fashion. In addition, a second control experiment (Exp. 2) confirmed that the effect we observed in Exp. 1 was not due to the participants’ inability to hear pitch deviations, but rather was influenced by contextual expectations.

Handbook of Research Methods in Human Memory, 2018

Auditory Perception & Cognition, 2021

Introduction. Although levels of processing (LOP) effects are well-established in memory research... more Introduction. Although levels of processing (LOP) effects are well-established in memory research, beneficial effects of “deep” orienting tasks have rarely been reported in studies of tune memory. Our prior work implicated mood judgments as one candidate for a beneficial orienting task. The current series explored both the robustness and potential explanations for that enhancement. Methods. In four experiments, we varied type of processing tasks (including mood and other putatively deep/conceptual and shallow/perceptual tasks) and the familiarity of the tunes in a recognition paradigm, which included "remember/know" judgments. Results. Experiment 1, with low-familiarity tunes, revealed a LOP effect for two conceptual (mood, continuation) over two perceptual (contour tracing, note counting) tasks in "remember” scores. This effect was most pronounced for the mood task. In Experiment 2a (high-familiarity tunes) and 2b (low-familiarity tunes), we found superiority of distinctiveness- and categorization-based orienting tasks over the control task of loudness ratings, but again for "remember" scores only; the first two tasks were equivalent. Finally, in Experiment 3, we asked participants to compare pairs of low-familiarity tunes on mood, distinctiveness, or length (control task). The mood task led to better memory than length judgments, and the distinctiveness task was marginally superior to length judgments. Discussion. All four experiments revealed LOP effects only in "remember" scores. Mood judgment was the most consistently effective orienting task. Results are discussed in relation to models of memory, including how some tasks offer particularly effective “affordances” in some domains.

Timing & Time Perception, 2020

This brief report is inspired by Bolton’s (1894, Am. J. Psychol., 6, 145–238) tick-tock phenomeno... more This brief report is inspired by Bolton’s (1894, Am. J. Psychol., 6, 145–238) tick-tock phenomenon, which describes an illusionary accented grouping of isochronous, non-accented click sequences. It has repeatedly been shown that in stimulus-wise grouped sequences of an XXXOOO character (where X differs from O in terms of intensity, pitch level, or filled or unfilled duration), gap deviations between groups are more prone to go unnoticed compared to deviations within a group (e.g., Fitzgibbons et al., 1974, Percept. Psychophys., 16, 522–528.). Yet, not much is known about whether comparable anisochrony insensitivities might also occur in equal-accented sequences (XXXXX). In a same/different task setting, listeners had to detect isochrony deviations that appeared in different empty-interval locations across 800 trials within a five-pulse sequence of 250 ms interonset intervals. Findings revealed a major location dependency, with least detection accuracy for gap deviations occurring in...

This article is a sequel to “Gestalt Theory: Its Past, its Stranding, and its Future.” The aim of... more This article is a sequel to “Gestalt Theory: Its Past, its Stranding, and its Future.” The aim of this article is to bring to light the conceptual and empirical contributions of Gestalt theory within the field of memory. It is typically believed that Gestalt theory is a theory about perception only. This, however, is not true. The first part of the article discusses some critical thoughts about memory processes as presented by Kurt Koffka in his Principles of Gestalt (1936) book. These involve Koffka’s proposal about the involvement and effects of memory processes in the perception of successive Gestalts; a discussion of the similarities and differences between percepts and memory traces; Koffka’s reference to research suggesting that memory traces are dynamic such that, depending on their Prägnanz, they will or will not change during storage in a way that can even be predicted in some cases. The article then reviews one of the most powerful empirical studies on memory within a Gest...

psyarxiv, 2022

This article will focus on two pioneering scientific works in problem-solving, or per Gestalt the... more This article will focus on two pioneering scientific works in problem-solving, or per Gestalt theory, “productive thinking”. One of them is Köhler’s research on goal-directed tool use and overcoming obstacles in chimpanzees, the other is Duncker’s studies on problem-solving using a “think aloud” technique. In both Köhler’s and Duncker’s work, productive thinking is linked to a restructuring behavior, such as tearing off a thin, long branch from a tree to serve as a stick or removing various objects in a matchbox to transform it from a container to a base on which to mount a candle. In the final section, I will look at how today’s research trends might and should connect to Gestalt theory. In conclusion, just as in memory, the main tenets of Gestalt theory of figure-ground segregation and grouping play a critical role also in thinking. Thus, Gestalt theory seems to be able to come up with a common way of understanding perception, memory, as well as thinking. To my knowledge there is no other single theory within cognitive psychology that has such broad an explanatory power. This in itself is one more reason why Gestalt theory deserves crucial attention across all of cognition, even all of psychology and possibly even beyond.

psyarxiv, 2022

Psyarxiv, 2021

This article focuses on the contributions of the founders of Gestalt theory, not only for the hig... more This article focuses on the contributions of the founders of Gestalt theory, not only for the high value they carried even back then, but also for the strong relevance they have today. The main purpose is to point to the deficient, even wrong transmission of this perspective particularly in the past 50 years and to highlight its potential to connect the immense amount of accumulated but disconnected scientific facts and pieces within psychology as of today. The first part of this article discusses Max Wertheimer’s important 1912 “phi phenomenon” article and recounts the Gestalt theorists’ launch of their influential journal Psychologische Forschung in 1922, the rise of the oppressive and violent Nazi regime in Germany, and the resulting emigration of the Gestalt founders to the US where they had to face a radically different perspective to psychology. The second part discusses the main postulates of the theory, focusing on how the movement emerged, its main theoretical perspective, and its work on perception. In a second and third article (Mungan, 2021a; 2021b), I will review their intriguing research and conceptualizations on memory and productive thinking, respectively. Hence, the current article should be read as the first in a series of three.

Nesne Psikoloji Dergisi, 2021

This article will focus on two pioneering scientific work on problem solving, or per Gestalt Theo... more This article will focus on two pioneering scientific work on problem solving, or per Gestalt Theory, “productive thinking”. One of them is Köhler’s research on goal-directed tool use and overcoming obstacles in chimpanzees, the other one is Duncker’s studies on problem solving using a “think aloud” technique. In both Köhler’s and Duncker’s work, productive thinking is linked to a restructuring behavior. For example, tearing off a thin and long branch from a tree to serve as a stick or removing the various objects in a matchbox to transform it from a container to a platform on which to mount a candle are examples of such restructuring. In the final section, I will look at how today’s research trends might and should connect to Gestalt Theory. In conclusion, just as in memory, the two main proposals of Gestalt Theory, i.e., figure-ground separation and grouping in figures play a critical role also in thinking. Thus, Gestalt Theory seems to be able to come up with a common way of under...

In the visual domain people tend to use ensemble coding to represent sets of objects by averaging... more In the visual domain people tend to use ensemble coding to represent sets of objects by averaging their object features. Extraction of these statistical summaries appears to be a very fast and accurate process. Recent evidence suggested that listeners can also use ensemble coding in perception of auditory sequences with pure tones. In this study, we investigated statistical summary representations using more music-like stimuli. We found that nonmusician listeners performed above-chance when estimating the mean pitch frequency of a complex tone sequence with 6, but not 4 or 8 tones. Our study presents some evidence for statistical summary extraction in nonmusicians with complex tone sequences of moderate length. We discuss our results with respect to why complex tones might have brought some limit to statistical averaging. For higher ecological validity it is critical that studies on ensemble encoding with auditory stimuli start using complex rather than pure tones. This will also pr...

This article is a sequel to “Gestalt Theory: Its Past, its Stranding, and its Future..”. It focus... more This article is a sequel to “Gestalt Theory: Its Past, its Stranding, and its Future..”. It focuses on what Gestalt theory proposed and produced within the area of memory, which unfortunately are almost unknown. It is typically believed that Gestalt theory is a theory about perception only. This, however, is not true. The aim of this article is to bring to daylight the conceptual and empirical contributions of Gestalt theory within the field of memory. The first part of the article discusses some critical proposals about memory processes in Kurt Koffka’s Principles of Gestalt (1936) book. These involve Koffka’s proposal about the involvement and effects of memory processes in the perception of successive Gestalts; a discussion of the similarities and differences between percepts and memory traces; Koffka’s reference to research suggesting that memory traces are dynamic such that depending on their Prägnanz they will or will not change during storage; that the type of change can even...

Music is present in every known society, yet varies from place to place. What is universal to the... more Music is present in every known society, yet varies from place to place. What is universal to the perception of music? We measured a signature of mental representations of rhythm in 923 participants from 39 participant groups in 15 countries across 5 continents, spanning urban societies, indigenous populations, and online participants. Listeners reproduced random ‘‘seed’’ rhythms; their reproductions were fed back as the stimulus (as in the game of “telephone”), such that their biases (the prior) could be estimated from the distribution of reproductions. Every tested group showed a prior with peaks at integer ratio rhythms, suggesting that discrete rhythm “categories” at small integer ratios are universal. The occurrence and relative importance of different integer ratio categories varied across groups, often reflecting local musical systems. However, university students and online participants in non-Western countries tended to resemble Western participants, underrepresenting the v...

Auditory Perception and Cognition, 2021

Methods. In four experiments, we varied type of processing tasks (including mood and other putatively deep/conceptual and shallow/perceptual tasks) and the familiarity of the tunes in a recognition paradigm, which included "remember/know" judgments.

Results. Experiment 1, with low-familiarity tunes, revealed a LOP effect for two conceptual (mood, continuation) over two perceptual (contour tracing, note counting) tasks in "remember” scores. This effect was most pronounced for the mood task. In Experiment 2a (high-familiarity tunes) and 2b (low-familiarity tunes), we found superiority of distinctiveness- and categorization-based orienting tasks over the control task of loudness ratings, but again for "remember" scores only; the first two tasks were equivalent. Finally, in Experiment 3, we asked participants to compare pairs of low-familiarity tunes on mood, distinctiveness, or length (control task). The mood task led to better memory than length judgments, and the distinctiveness task was marginally superior to length judgments.

Discussion. All four experiments revealed LOP effects only in "remember" scores. Mood judgment was the most consistently effective orienting task. Results are discussed in relation to models of memory, including how some tasks offer particularly effective “affordances” in some domains.

Memory & Cognition, May 1, 1993

New Ideas in Psychology

New Ideas in Psychology, 2023

Nesne-Psikoloji Dergisi, 2020

Handbook of Research Methods in Human Memory, 2018

Auditory Perception & Cognition, 2021

Timing & Time Perception, 2020

psyarxiv, 2022

Psyarxiv, 2021

Nesne Psikoloji Dergisi, 2021

Auditory Perception and Cognition, 2021

Geştalt Kuramı: İnsana Dair Başka Bir Bilim Mümkün Mü?, 2023

Bu kitap, psikolojinin bugüne dek geliştirdiği belki de en ilginç ancak en az anlaşılmış kuram ol... more Bu kitap, psikolojinin bugüne dek geliştirdiği belki de en ilginç ancak en az anlaşılmış kuram olan Geştalt kuramına dair, psikoloji tarihi içinde küçük bir "bellek tazeleme" çalışması sayılabilir. Amacımız, orijinal hali hakkında çok az şey bilinen, bilinenlerin ise-kimi zaman tercüme eksiği veya hatalarından, kimi zaman da orijinal eserlerin okunmamasından-ya çok eksik ya da düpedüz yanlış olduğu, dünyaya bambaşka gözlüklerle bakan bu çarpıcı kurama biraz olsun "hakkını" iade etmek. Kuramın özellikle iki yönü oldukça heyecan verici. Bunlardan biri, kuramın algı dışında psikolojinin tüm diğer alanlarına dair de önermelerinin bulunması ve hatta psikolojinin ötesine de uzanabilecek kapsamda bir genel kavrayışın üzerine kurulu olması. Bir diğeri ise, psikoloji tarihi içinde-hele ki Anglo-Amerikan psikoloji ekolünün adeta "dayatmasıyla"-her şeyin iki zıt kamp üzerinden tanımlanmasını tümüyle reddetmesi.