Ivo Kohler

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Grave of Ivo Kohler in the St. Nikolaus-Friedhof Innsbruck

Ivo Kohler (born July 27, 1915 in Schruns ; † January 23, 1985 in Innsbruck ) was an Austrian psychologist and from 1956 to 1981 professor of psychology at the University of Innsbruck .

Life

Ivo Kohler was born as the second of six siblings in Schruns. His school time at the classical-humanistic grammar school was interrupted by a one-year visit to the locksmithing school in Fulpmes , a training phase that he completed with honors and that he himself valued and referred to again and again. He also passed his Matura in Bregenz in 1934 with distinction. From 1934 to 1936 he studied theology in Brixen , from 1937 to 1940 philosophy at the University of Innsbruck. In 1941 he was able to complete his studies of philosophy, including psychology and the second subject physics at the University of Innsbruck during a study leave from military service, he received his doctorate with the study “The influence of experience in optical perception, illuminated by attempts at long-term wear and image distorting Prisms. “After the end of the Second World War - during which time he was drafted into the 6th Mountain Division - Kohler was assistant to his teacher Theodor Paul Erismann for 10 years . He completed his habilitation with the work “On the Structure and Changes in the World of Perception”, published in 1951, for both psychology (1950) and philosophy (1953). In 1956 he was appointed to the newly created professorship for psychology because of his research work and was appointed to succeed Erismann and head of the Institute for Experimental Psychology.

In 1960 Ivo Kohler and the psychologist Erika Merker married, who from then on accompanied his scientific path as a specialist colleague.

From the beginning of the 1960s, Kohler was invited several times as a visiting professor at US universities. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford in 1962/63 , at Cornell University in 1963 , at the University of Vermont in 1969/70 and at the University of Kansas in 1973 . Kohler remained director of the institute until 1980. In 1981 Kohler became professor emeritus.

plant

Ivo Kohler belongs to the "Innsbruck School of Perceptual Psychology", which was founded by the physicist and psychologist Theodor Erismann . The starting point of the perceptual psychological studies was the idea that a systematic disturbance of the visual sense could make processes of adaptation to the new perceptual conditions visible. The studies carried out in this context and in the tradition of George M. Stratton (1896) or William Stern (1927) were carried out with erectile glasses , prism glasses , half prism glasses and color glasses (either vertically divided glasses with yellow-blue fields for each eye or horizontally split glasses with red-green lenses).

Kohler can probably be assigned the world record for the longest participation in his own perception experiment, for which he u. a. Wore binocular prism glasses for 124 days. The adaptation to this “new” world was followed on the basis of the protocols of the test persons, mostly named by name, as well as observation and experimental tests. The following experience can serve as an example of the long-term effects of wearing inverted glasses:

  • If an object, initially seen incorrectly, was brought close to the subject's body and allowed to reach and feel at the same time, then suddenly a new classification took place and the object appeared upright ... The 'usual' proved to be a very effective reason for upright vision - upright 'picture: a candle that was initially seen upside down, with the wick down, was suddenly upright when it was lit. Even the smoke from a burning cigarette turned the situation around on the spot. "

The long-term tests in particular made it possible to make significantly new findings visible (such as situation after-effects or after-effects occurring in the opposite colors at the dispersion edges of the prisms). His experiments triggered further research worldwide, which reached from the USA and Japan to Australia and in the course of which hundreds of specialist articles on the organization of perception were created. With his view that our perception can filter out higher-order structures from environmental information that are important for our actions, he is close to the views of James J. Gibson from Cornell University and Gunnar Johansson from Uppsala University, both also pioneers of the Perceptual Psychology.

In addition, the topics Kohler worked on were widely spread and ranged from directional hearing in babies and toddlers, to the remote sense of blind people, to critical examination of psy phenomena. He also dealt with the question of the extent to which the results of animal behavior research can be transferred to human psychology. Kohler gained observation of behavioral research “first hand” in his experiments on learning to emboss young tits.

The students and staff appreciated Kohler's wealth of new ideas as well as his tolerance and openness to the opinions of others. New ideas - even if they almost led to the bizarre (think of the simulation of a conditioned reflex by means of a capacitor circuit) - were valued more by him than a "kind" scientific work with its methodological apparatus.

selected Writings

  • Ivo Kohler (1951). About the structure and changes in the world of perception. Especially about conditioned sensations. Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class: Session Reports, 227, Volume 1. Vienna: Rohrer.
  • Ivo Kohler (1957). Orientation through the sense of hearing. The Pyramid, 7, 81-93.
  • Ivo Kohler (1961). Pavlov and his dog (a demonstration model for the 'conditioned reflex'). Cybernetics, 1, 54-56.
  • Ivo Kohler (1962). Internal and external organization in the perception. Festschrift for the 75th birthday of Prof. Wolfgang Köhler . Psychological Papers , 6, 426-438.
  • Ivo Kohler (1964). The formation and transformation of the perceptual world. Psychological Issues, 3 (4), Monograph 12.
  • Ivo Kohler (1966). The cooperation of the senses and the general problem of adaptation. In Wolfgang Metzger (Ed.), Handbuch der Psychologie. General Psychology, I / 1. Göttingen: Hogrefe.
  • Gibson, JJ (1973). The senses and the process of perception (Original title: The senses considered as perceptual systems. Houghton Mifflin, Boston 1966). Translated by Ivo Kohler, Erika Kohler and M. Groner. Bern: Huber, ISBN 978-3456305868 .
  • Gibson, JJ (1982). Perception and Environment (Original title: The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1979). Translated by I. Kohler and G.Lücke, Munich: Urban & Schwarzenberg, ISBN 978-3621099318 .

literature

  • Lothar Spillmann & Bill R. Wooten (Eds.). (1984). Sensory experience, adaptation, and perception. Festschrift for Ivo Kohler. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Anton Hajós (1985). Obituary for Ivo Kohler. Psychological Rindschau, 36 (3), 164-165.
  • Manfred Ritter. In memoriam em. O. Univ.-Prof Dr. phil. Ivo Kohler (1915-1985).
  • Manfred Ritter (1996). Brief outline of the history of the Institute for Psychology at the University of Innsbruck.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On his NSDAP and SA membership and on his "denazification" as a "minor" see: Psychology and National Socialism: The Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Innsbruck .
  2. ↑ Ivo Kohler (1951), p. 18 f.
  3. ↑ Manfred Ritter (1996). [1]
  4. ↑ Manfred Ritter. In memoriam em. O. Univ.-Prof Dr. phil. Ivo Kohler (1915-1985). [2]
  5. ↑ Manfred Ritter (1996). Brief outline of the history of the Institute for Psychology at the University of Innsbruck. [3]
personal data
SURNAME Kohler, Ivo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 27, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Schruns
DATE OF DEATH January 23, 1985
Place of death innsbruck