Hans Wallach

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Hans Leopold Wallach (born November 28, 1904 in Schöneberg ; † February 5, 1998 ) was a German-American experimental psychologist . His research focused on perception and learning . Although trained in the tradition of Gestalt psychology , he later examined the adaptability of the perceptual system based on the perceiver's experiences. In contrast, most gestalt theorists emphasized the innate properties of stimuli and consider the role of experience to be less. Wallach's studies on the achromatic surface of colors created the basis for later developed theories of the constancy of lightness of colors. His work on the localization of sound sources explained the perceptual process on which stereophony is based. He was a member of the US National Academy of Sciences (since 1986), a Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Howard Crosby Warren Medal of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.

Life

Wallach was born in his parents' apartment at Regensburger Strasse 5a in the city of Schönberg (today a district of Berlin. His parents were the Jewish merchant Meyer Albert Wallach and Thekla nee Mayer, who was also of Jewish descent. He attended Werner -Siemens-Realgymnasium in Berlin-Schöneberg , graduated from high school there in 1923. First he studied chemistry , then enrolled at the Psychological Institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin, where he became assistant to the director Wolfgang Köhler , after which he devoted himself to research In 1934 he received his doctorate in Berlin.

In 1936 he received an invitation from Wolfgang Köhler to follow him as a research assistant at Swarthmore College near Philadelphia in the US state of Pennsylvania . Wallach stayed there his entire professional life. For the next six years, he initially concentrated on research. As more and more scientists from the Psychological Department fought in World War II , he became a lecturer in 1942 . In 1953 he became a professor, from 1957 to 1966 he was the Faculty of Psychology at Swarthmore College. In 1971 he was appointed Centennial Professor of Psychology. In 1975 he retired from teaching, but continued researching until 1994.

In addition to his work in Swarthmore, he was a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research in New York from 1947 to 1957 . In 1948 he received a Guggenheim grant. In 1954 and 1955 he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey .

Wallach was married to the artist Phoebe Kasper. They had a son, Karl. His wife died in 1968. His son died in 2001.

Works

  • About visually perceived direction of movement , Springer Verlag, Berlin 1935

Fonts

  • Figural after-effects. An investigation of visual processes , in: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , 88, pp. 269-357
  • Adaption in the constancy of visual direction tested by measuring the constancy of auditory direction . in: Attention, Perception & Psychophysics , 4, pp. 299-303

literature

Uwe Wolfradt: Wallach, Hans , in: German-speaking psychologists 1933–1945 , Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heidbreder, E. (1933). Seven psychologies (pp. 331-340). Appleton Century Crofts
  2. ↑ Schultz, DP & Schultz, SE (2000). A history of modern psychology , 7th ed. (Pp. 355-357). Harcourt College Publishers
  3. ↑ a b Swarthmore College Bulletin , March 1998, p. 5
  4. ↑ Birth register StA Schöneberg I No. 2773/04 .
  5. ↑ Uwe Wolfradt, Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha, Armin Stock (eds.): German-speaking psychologists 1933–1945 , Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 2015, p. 465
  6. ↑ a b Harris, CS (2001) Hans Wallach (1904-1998) , in: American Psychologist, 56 (1) , pp. 73-74. doi: 10.1037 // 0003-066X.56.1.73
  7. ↑ Mandler, G. (2007) A history of modern experimental psychology (pp. 152-153). MIT Press.
  8. ^ Saxon, W. (1998, Feb. 15) Obituary of Hans Wallach , New York Times , February 15, 1998
personal data
SURNAME Wallach, Hans
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American experimental psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 28, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH February 5, 1998