Gestaltian Principles of Form Perception

- law of proximity- law of similarity- law of Figure-Ground- law of symmetry- law of closure- law of continuity

- you can only focus on one thing at a time- we seem to need to separate a dominant shape from what our current concerns relegate to 'background'

When we perceive a collection of objects, we will see objects close to each other as forming a group

- parts of a stimulus field that are similar to each other tend to be perceived as belonging together as a unit

- aka law of good continuation- points that are connected by straight or curving lines are seen in a way that follows the smoothest path

- things are grouped together if they seem to complete some entity- out brains often ignore contradictory information and fill in gaps in information- interpretations that produce closed figures rather than open ones- goes back to the idea that you favor symmetrical objects

- when we perceive objects we tend to perceive them as symmetrical shapes that form around their centre

- areas which can be seen as surrounded by others tend to be perceived as figures

- the simplest and most stable interpretations are favoured