Insight Learning Theory

Wolfgang Kohler

Wolfgang Kohler (1887-1967) was born in Estonia, and earned his Ph.D from the University of Berlin in 1909 on psycho-acoustics. Kohler was one of the original Gestalt theorists and proposed his own theory called the Insight Learning Theory. (The term "Gestalt" refers to any pattern or organized whole. The key concept in Gestalt theory is that the nature of the parts is determined by the whole - parts are secondary to the whole. When we process sensory stimuli, we are aware directly of a configuration or overall pattern which is grasped as a whole. For example, when listening to music, we perceive a melody rather than individual notes, or when looking at a painting, we see the overall image rather than individual brush strokes. Köhler emphasized that one must examine the whole to discover what its natural parts are, and not proceed from smaller elements into wholes). 

Kohler's Famous Experiment on Chimpanzee:

In one of his more famous studies, he set up a problem for one of the chimpanzees. Sultan the chimp was faced with the problem of how to get to a banana that was placed just out of reach, outside his cage. Sultan solved this problem relatively easily. First he tried to reach the banana through the bars with his arms and then used a stick that was lying in the cage to rake the banana into the cage. As chimpanzees are natural tool users, this behaviour is not surprising and is still nothing more than simple trial-and-error learning.

Sultan making a double-stick

But then the problem was made more difficult. The banana was placed just out of reach of Sultan's extended arm with the stick in his hand. At this point there were two sticks lying around his cage. Sultan first tried with one stick then the other (simple trial-and-error). After about an hour of trying, Sultan seemed to have a sudden flash of inspiration. He pushed one stick out of the cage as far as it would go toward the banana and then pushed the other stick behind the first one. When he tried to draw the sticks back only the one in his hand came. Sultan was very excited and when Kohler gave him the second stick, he sat on the floor and looked at them carefully. He then fitted one stick into the other and retrieved his banana.

Kohler called Sultan's rapid "perception of relationship" insight and determined that insight could not gained through trial-and-error learning alone. His theory suggested that learning could occur by "sudden comprehension" as opposed to gradual understanding. This could occur without reinforcement, and once it occurs, no review, training, or investigation are necessary. Significantly, insight is not necessarily observable by another person. 

Thorndike and early learning theorists believed that animal could not demonstrate insight, but more recent reaserch has found support for the concept of animal insight. However, still there is controversy over how to interpret the results of those studies.