Gestalt Principles of Perception

Gestalt Principles of Perception in Psychology

Let us first define and describe the theories of Gestalt psychology, and why they are significant within the psychological explanations of perception.

In psychology, the visual perception of stimuli can be attributed to what is called middle vision. This is when one goes from seeing the components of lines, edges, and objects into the basic perception of an image. The question then becomes, how can we explain this occurrence?

Defining the Gestalt Principles of Perception

To explain this process, the theories and principles of Gestalt psychology are applied. As previously mentioned, the main Gestalt theory of perception is the understanding that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. In terms of visual perception, this means that one can make an inference of a “whole” image or object before accounting for every individual “part” it is comprised of.

To put things into perspective, think of a time when you have seen a shape of something in nature. The big dipper in the stars, a heart-shaped cloud, or even the shape of an animal made of rocks. These are all examples of the Gestalt theory of perception.

What Are the Gestalt Principles of Perception?

Now that we have discussed the definition of perception and Gestalt psychology, we will list the principles themselves. There are a total of nine Gestalt rules in perception. They all describe the order in which we process visual information.

Good Continuation

This is the first Gestalt rule of perception. Just as the name suggests, this rule says that people will often perceive aligned images as smooth, complete, and continuous in contour (APA, 2013). In other words, lines and figures that overlap would be perceived as complete and unbroken regardless of one’s inability to confirm the hidden area of the object.

Fg. 1 Crossed keys symbolizing the principle of good continuation, Wikimedia commons

Closure

Similar to the rule previously mentioned, the law of closure reinforces the common perception of complete shapes and images even in the event that they are incomplete, missing components, or contain gaps.

Fg. 2 Closure, Wikimedia commons

What do you see in this image? Most people see a rectangle and a circle. What is actually being displayed is a group of gapped lines that we perceive as a rectangle and square.

Texture Segmentation

The third principle of perception states that one perceives shapes or groups dependent on texture. In other words, an image that has varying textures or patterns is perceived in separate “regions” within the whole image.

Fg. 3 Texture, Wikimedia commons

As you can see, in this image of a crochet design, there is a clear difference in the textures of the knit. This allows the perception of a shape due to the clear regions of texture.

Similarity

The Gestalt law of similarity is just as simple as it sounds. When viewing objects or images that have distinct components with similarities between them, one will perceive these in groups based on those characteristics.

Fg. 4 Similarity, Wikimedia commons

Proximity

The principle of perception proximity differs from other laws in that it is based on the closeness or proximity of items. Using this law, one perceives the closeness of components in an image to be associated with one another. This law is so prominent in visual perception that it trumps other perception grouping effects like shape and color (Vinney, 2021).

Common Region

The common region rule is very similar to "proximity" in that item that seems in the same region as one another are perceived in groups.

Connectedness

This rule is applied when one perceives independent items within a visual to be connected. One prime example of this principle of perception can be seen in the common game of “connect the dots”.

Parallelism

According to the law of parallelism, items that are located parallel to one another are perceived in association with each other, or grouped. Components in the visual field that are parallel are perceived to be more related than items that are not parallel.

Symmetry

A visual that displays characteristics of symmetry are perceived as a unified structure.

Fg. 5 Symmetry as shown by a butterfly, Wikimedia commons

Importance of the Gestalt Principles of Perception

All of these rules may seem obvious and rather simple. However, each of them is essential to how we perceive the world around us. Imagine trying to organize all of the visual information we see in day-to-day life without these simple automatic rules of perception. It would be significantly more dangerous to drive, walk, or just survive without being able to quickly make inferences about shapes, lines, edges, and objects.

This is just one crucial example of how the Gestalt principles of perception allow us to safely and quickly organize all visual information and stimuli.