Köhler, Wolfgang (kö`lər), 1887–1967, American psychologist, b. Estonia, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1909. From 1913 to 1920 he was director of a research station on Tenerife, Canary Islands. Later he served as both professor of psychology and director of the Psychology Institute, Berlin. He came to the United States in 1934, where he became professor of psychology at Swarthmore College. Köhler is best known for his experiments with problem-solving in apes at Tenerife and the influence of his writings in the founding of the school of Gestalt Gestalt (gəshtält`) [Ger.
..... Click the link for more information. psychology. His writings include Gestalt Psychology (rev. ed. 1947) and The Mentality of Apes (rev. ed. 1948).

Bibliography

See his selected papers, ed. by M. Henle (1971).

Köhler, Wolfgang

(born Jan. 21, 1887, Tallinn, Estonia, Russian Empire—died June 11, 1967, Enfield, N.H., U.S.) German-U.S. psychologist. His studies of problem solving by chimpanzees (The Mentality of Apes, 1917), in which he examined learning and perception as structured wholes, led to a radical revision of existing theory, and Köhler became a key figure in the development of Gestalt psychology. He continued his research during the 1920s and early '30s at the University of Berlin, publishing Gestalt Psychology (1929, rev. 1947), but emigrated from Germany to the U.S. after the Nazi takeover and taught at Swarthmore College (1935–55). His other writings include Dynamics in Psychology (1940), The Place of Values in a World of Facts (1938), and The Task of Gestalt Psychology (1969).

Köhler, Wolfgang (1887–1967) psychologist; born in Reval, Estonia. He was one of the early proponents of Gestalt psychology along with Kurt Koffka and Max Wertheimer. He emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1935. He became professor of psychology and then research professor of philosophy and psychology at Swarthmore (Pa.) College (1935–58). He developed a physiological theory of perception, which he extended to memory and attention.