Gaetano Kanizsa: The scientist and the man

Abstract

Theoretical position and research methods of the late Professor Gaetano Kanizsa (1913Kanizsa ( -1993 are outlined through the private recollections of the author. Some elements of history of psychology in Europe are added, with a detailed survey as to Gestalt psychology in Italy. The state of affairs in the field of event perception is examined, and a proposal to sistematically apply experimental phenomenology to event perception is set forth. Some problems of time psychology are briefly traced.

Experimental phenomenology, a challenge.

“…In the surviving experimental framework of phenomenology, a specific role has been played by the Italian group of researchers that arose around the unforgettable, and somehow bulky personality of Gaetano Kanizsa in Trieste (Vicario, 1994) and the meticulous, measureoriented personality of Metelli in Padova (Flores D'Arcais 1975;Marhaba, 1999), although Metelli had conducted many other exquisitely psychophysical researches. In a memorable period of scientific and human enterprise, Kanizsa and Metelli perfected the protocols and the research methods of experimental phenomenology, whose demonstrations (Kanizsa, 1979(Kanizsa, , 1980(Kanizsa, , 1991 and measurements and explanations (Metelli, 1970(Metelli, , 1974 were illustrated in a number of experiments, articles and books.…”

“…However, Gestalt psychology is a Gestalt of its own. On one side, sometimes it is difficult to make a clear-cut distinction between the ideas of the individual researchers (a situation that characterizes schools of thought): think of the ideas expressed by Wertheimer (1938), Koffka (1962) and Vicario (1994). On the other side, individual focuses of interest and attitudes can be discerned (consider Köhler’s and Metzger’s positions about the role of physiology in the explanation of the percept).…”

Gestalt psychology in Italy

“…Kanizsa was also born (18 August 1913) in Trieste (Gerbino, 1993;Vicario, 1994). He exhibited the cosmopolitanism of Trieste; he was the son of a Hungarian father and a Slovenian mother.…”