Max Wertheimer

Max Wertheimer was born in Prague, Germany on April 15, 1880. He attended the Neustadter Gymnasium in Prague between 1890 to 1898. During his adolescence, Wertheimer played the violin, composed symphonic and chamber music and seemed destined to become a musician. In 1898, he entered the University of Prague, to study jurisprudence. He attended lectures in psychology, music, philosophy, physiology, and history of arts. In 1900, he began to study Law at Charles University in Prague, but was soon drawn to the philosophy of law and then to the psychology of courtroom testimony. In 1901,Wertheimer left Prague to study psychology at Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin, under Carl Stumpf, noted for his contributions to the psychology of music. During Max Wertheimer's period of education, it was the practice in Germany for students to migrate from one University to another, remaining there for but a few semesters.

He was interested in developing a lie detector for the objective study of testimony and devising a method of word association as part of his doctoral dissertation. Wertheimer received his Ph.D. from the University of Würzburg in 1904. Then he carried out research in various areas at Prague, Berlin and Vienna, becoming particularly interested in the perception of complex and ambiguous structures. He discovered that feebleminded children could solve problems themselves, when they grasped the overall structures involved. This was the beginning of the formulation of ideas that would later take root in Gestalt psychology.