Gestalt Theory Notes

Gestalt is not exclusive to psychology; it's a principle applicable in philosophy and economics.
Gestalt is a human construct, dependent on the prefrontal cortex and language centers.
Gestalt emphasizes the human preference for things to make sense rather than feeling disorganized or chaotic.
The term "gestalt" signifies that humans prefer to perceive smaller elements as a meaningful whole.
Gestalt is a psychological concept centered around perception.

Describes perceiving elements as grouped based on their closeness to each other.
Example: Six lines with spaces between them are seen as pairs due to proximity.
Our brains prefer to group things together if they are close to one another rather than seeing them as individually separated.
Proximity means nearness.

Explains that we group things together when they look alike or are similar to one another.
Example: Rows of x's and o's are seen as lines of x's and lines of o's due to similarity.
Uniforms are a practical application of similarity, helping us identify teammates or employees by grouping them together based on what they wear.

Refers to our tendency to see things as continuous rather than broken or disjointed.
Example: Two lines that appear to be crossing are perceived as continuous lines rather than separate angles touching each other.

Describes how we perceive objects moving in the same direction as belonging together.
If two or more objects are moving in a similar direction, our brain wants to make the assumption that they are together.
Example: People walking in the same direction are assumed to be together.

Explains our brain's tendency to fill in missing information to create a complete image or idea.
If something is missing, our brain wants to fill it in because we don't wanna see just all sorts of random.
Tattoo artists often utilize this principle.
Example: Seeing a dog in a picture with incomplete lines and shapes; our brain fills in the missing parts.
Example: Seeing the top of Mt. Rainier floating on the cloud, we know the whole mountain exists even though its not fully visible

Describes how we perceive objects based on what we see as the foreground (figure) versus the background.
It's all about which object is perceived to be more forward or more behind.
Example: The candlestick/faces illusion, where you can see either a candlestick or two faces depending on what you perceive as the figure and ground.

Similarity: Why uniforms work, associating people in the same group or role.
Proximity: Putting things close together to see sets of things.
Common Fate: Assuming things moving together belong together.
Continuity: Preferring to see things as a continuous flow or pattern.

Stroboscopic motion is where we assume movement or we perceive movement based on a rapid projection or progression of still images
Perceiving movement from rapid succession of still images (e.g., movies, animation).
Animation is actually one of the most interesting to think about in terms of, like, strobic motion because up until really we got to computer technology for animation, if we go back to early era, like early Disney and early nineteen hundreds, right, every single cartoon, any Bugs Bunny has anyone seen old Bugs Bunny?
Old Bugs Bunny cartoons involved an artist rendering each single individual image to produce movement.