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Gestalt principles (Part 2)

Nature Methods volume 7, page 941 (2010)Cite this article

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Our visual system attempts to structure what we see into patterns to make sense of information. The Gestalt principles describe different ways we organize visual data. Last month, we looked at four principles that incline us to group objects when they are made to look alike, are placed near one another, are connected by lines or are enclosed in a common space1. This month, we will examine the principles of visual completion and continuity. These principles are useful in page layout work and when we compose figures and slides.

Another example of visual completion is shown in Figure 1b. We automatically and spontaneously perceive a full circle behind the square. In reality, several shapes are possible in the occluded area. This disparity between the actual visual stimulus and what we think (or know) we should be seeing points to the psychology involved in seeing. It is likely that we complete the object behind the square as a circle because it produces a simple and familiar shape.

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Figure 1: Visual completion.
Figure 2: Alignment.

References

  1. Wong, B. Nat. Methods 7, 863 (2010).

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  2. Kanizsa, G. Organization in Vision: Essays on Gestalt Perception (Praeger Publishers, New York, 1979).

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  1. Bang Wong is the creative director of the Broad Institute 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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Wong, B. Gestalt principles (Part 2). Nat Methods 7, 941 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth1210-941

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