Jonathan Love

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Gestalt Principles of Perception

“Gestalt” (from “shape” or “form”) is the concept of seeing the whole before its parts; and/or the whole being more than the sum of its parts

Gestalt Psychology was founded by Max Wertheimer starting from the initial observation that we perceive motion where there is nothing more than a rapid sequence of sensory events (e.g. lights flashing on and off along a string giving the perception of movement of light along that string even if nothing actually moves)

Key Ideas

Emergence

Reification (Filling in the Gaps)

Multi-Stability (Avoiding Uncertainty)

Invariance (Recognising Similarities and Differences)

Key Principles

Resources


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