Kurt Koffka

Kurt Koffka was a German psychologist and professor, born in Berlin in 1886 and died in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1941. With Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler he developed Gestalt psychology. His interests covered visual perception, brain damage, sound localization, developmental psychology and experimental psychology, and his own red-green colour blindness drew him to the study of colour vision and after-images. He studied at the University of Berlin, took his doctorate in 1908 and then worked as an assistant to Oswald Külpe at Würzburg. His books include The Growth of the Mind, an introduction to child psychology published in 1924, and The Principles of Gestalt Psychology of 1935.