AnonymousUnknown author · Public domain

Max Wertheimer co-founded Gestalt psychology alongside Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler, arguing that the mind perceives organized wholes rather than assembling isolated sensory parts — a claim he grounded in his conception of the phi phenomenon, the illusion of motion created by rapidly alternating still images. After training under Carl Stumpf in Berlin, he taught in Frankfurt and Berlin before later joining the faculty of the New School in New York, where Abraham Maslow was among the researchers who studied under him and came to admire him.