Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology struggled to precisely define terms like Prägnanz, to make specific behavioral predictions, and to articulate testable models of underlying neural mechanisms. It was criticized as being merely descriptive. These shortcomings led, by the mid-20th century, to growing dissatisfaction with Gestaltism and a subsequent decline in its impact on psychology. Despite this decline, Gestalt psychology has formed the basis of much further research into the perception of patterns and objects and of research into behavior, thinking, problem solving and psychopathology.