A Gestalt account of human behavior is supported by evidence from switching between single and dual actions

The question of how behavior is represented in the mind lies at the core of psychology as the science of mind and behavior. While a long-standing research tradition has established two opposing fundamental views of perceptual representation, Structuralism and Gestalt psychology, we test both accounts with respect to action representation: Are multiple actions (characterizing human behavior in general) represented as the sum of their component actions (Structuralist view) or holistically (Gestalt view)? Using a single-/dual-response switch paradigm, we analyzed switches between dual ([A + B]) and single ([A], [B]) responses across different effector systems and revealed comparable performance in partial repetitions and full switches of behavioral requirements (e.g., in [A + B] → [A] vs. [B] → [A], or [A] → [A + B] vs. [B] → [A + B]), but only when the presence of dimensional overlap between responses allows for Gestalt formation. This evidence for a Gestalt view of behavior in our paradigm challenges some fundamental assumptions in current (tacitly Structuralist) action control theories (in particular the idea that all actions are represented compositionally with reference to their components), provides a novel explanatory angle for understanding complex, highly synchronized human behavior (e.g., dance), and delimitates the degree to which complex behavior can be analyzed in terms of its basic components.