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Gestalt principles (Part 1)

Nature Methods volume 7, page 863 (2010)Cite this article

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Gestalt principles of perception are theories proposed by German psychologists in the 1920s to explain how people organize visual information1. Gestalt is a German word meaning shape or form. The principles describe the various ways we tend to visually assemble individual objects into groups or 'unified wholes'. They are highly relevant to the design of charts and graphs as well as the reports that contain them.

In the following discussion, to be continued in next month's column, we will explore several Gestalt principles. Here we will examine the principles of similarity, proximity, connection and enclosure. The fundamental concept behind these principles is grouping; we tend to perceive objects that look alike, are placed close together, connected by lines or enclosed in a common space as belonging together. These are simple but powerful ways to build context for information.

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Figure 1: Gestalt principles.
Figure 2: Principles of grouping.

References

  1. Palmer, S.E. Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1999).

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  1. Bang Wong is the creative director of the Broad Institute of of MIT & Harvard and an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.,

    Bang Wong

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  1. Bang Wong
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Wong, B. Gestalt principles (Part 1). Nat Methods 7, 863 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth1110-863

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