GESTALT PRINCIPLES OF PERCEPTION-
Gestalt theory first arouse in 1890 as a reaction to the
prevalent psychological theory of the time – atomism. Atomists believed the
nature of things to be absolute and not dependent on the context. However,
gestalt’s scientists were concerned about the fact about the way our mind
perceives wholes out of incomplete elements. According to the Gestalts , things
were affected by where they are and what surrounds them. Therefore things are
better described as more than the sum of there parts. Gestalts believed that
context was very important in form perception.
THE PRINCIPLES OR THE LAWS-

LAW OF PRAGNANZ(figure and ground) –
Edgar Rubin , a Danish psychologist was the first to systematically
investigate the figure and ground phenomenon. The phenomenon tells us that in
perceiving a visual field , some objects take a prominent roll or the figure
while others recede into the background or the ground . The visual field
is thus divided into these two basic parts . One cannot observe both figure and ground at
the same time as the ground becomes figure when the focus shifts. A breakdown
of figure and ground occurs with camouflage , where the objective is to make
the figure so much like the ground that it disappears from the view.
LAW OF SIMILARITY- The principle of similarity states that
things which share visual characteristics such as shape, size, color, texture,
value or orientation will be seen as belonging together.Just as in the figure 1 below,we see alternate horizontal rows of orange and purple color and not as alternate columns of orange and purple color.Similarly in figure 2, we see the second row as different from the others and not four vertical columns with the second element as bigger than the rest.
LAW OF PROXIMITY OR CONTIGUITY- The principle of proximity or
contiguity sates that things that are closer together will be seen as belonging
together.For example,the figure below shows two pairs of elements and not four vertical elements.
LAW OF CONTINUITY- The principle of continuity predicts the
preference of perceiving continuous figures.In the figure below we perceive a cross and not four lines meeting at a point.
LAW OF CLOSURE – The principle of closer applies when we tend
of see whole or complete figure out of incomplete figure.Like we see in the diagram below,we easily make out it is a circle with missing elements or gaps.
LAW OF AREA-The principle of area states that the smaller of
two overlapping figure is perceived as figure while the larger is regarded as
ground.In the figure below,we perceive the smaller box as a hole in the bigger box or the bigger box becomes the ground and the smaller tends to be the figure.
No comments:
Post a Comment