Epiphany theory holds that when people encounter problems, they will reorganize the existing structure of the problem situation to make up for the gap of the problem and reach a new gestalt, thus associating feasible solutions. The outstanding feature of this process is epiphany, that is, a sudden understanding of the problem situation.

Chinese name

Epiphany theory

Applied discipline

psychology

quick

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Educational enlightenment

origin

1913 ~1917 years, Kohler conducted a series of experimental studies on chimpanzee's problem-solving behavior, and thus put forward the first cognitive learning theory-Gestalt-Epiphany Theory, which was contrary to Thorndike's connection-trial-and-error theory. [ 1]

Kohler thinks that Thorndike's experiment is too complicated and the conclusion is unreliable. So he redesigned the animal learning experiment. Kohler believes that in order to determine whether there is a so-called understanding of chimpanzee learning behavior, experimental design must have a reliable principle. In his book The Wisdom of Apes (1925), he said that the principle he used to design the experiment was as follows: "The experimenter arranges a situation so that its purpose cannot be directly achieved, and makes it fully understand the situation, so that we can know what kind of behavior it can get, especially whether it can solve its problems in an indirect way." From this experimental design principle, we can see that (1) Kohler regards whether animals can solve problems indirectly as a sign of understanding; (2) The requirement of Kohler's experimental design is to make it possible for animals to fully understand their own situation, that is, all the main conditions of the problem must be exposed for animals to observe. At this point, his experiment is different from Thorndike's. The latter is not only complicated, but also not completely exposed for observation at first, so it is difficult for animals to fully understand their own situation.