Title: Human perception in gestalt psychology
Course: EN_Overall composition > Section: 2. How perception works

An introduction to the main concept of the theory of "Gestalt"

Gestalt psychology is a discipline within psychology that describes human perception as the ability to identify structures and ordering principles in sensory impressions. However, strictly speaking, it is not a psychological discipline, but rather a name for a number of similar views, that started to develop at the beginning of the 20th century.

Its main founder was Max Wertheimer, together with Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka. The fourth main thinker of this theory is Kurt Lewin. Wolfgang Metzger is as a representative of the second generation.

The Gestalt laws of grouping are a set of principles in psychology to explain that people naturally perceive objects as organized patterns and objects.
Or asked another way, why we perceive something as a unit - a shape - and not others. Or, to put it more vividly, why we interpret the adjacent graphic as two squares lying on top of each other and not as eight triangles, an octagon or an irregular polygon.

These principles exist because the mind has an innate predisposition to perceive patterns in stimuli based on certain rules.

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The Figur-Ground-Organization

The fundamental property of perception is based on the distinction between "figure" and "ground", the object standing out from the background. The brain strives to separate shapes from their flat or spatial surroundings and to understand them.

This works best when the figure (positive form) and the ground (negative form) differ greatly in their brightness, contrast with each other.

Some designs evoke an ambiguous figure-ground relationship (when forms are used that can be interpreted alternately as figure and ground). This is particularly visible in the Rubin cup.

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Law of good Gestalt (form): Prägnanz (=implies salience, conciseness, and orderliness)

All Gestalt laws are based on the law of conciseness (or the law of good design): organisations should always be as concise as possible.

According to the law of conciseness, it can be summarised: a shape is considered 'better', i.e. more concise, the more requirements of the following shape laws are fulfilled:

Law of

- proximity
- similarity
- closure
- good continuation
- common fate
- good form

Design laws are used in different media. This concerns for example the structure of web pages, photography, film or video animation.

Later on this module you will learn more about it: See the chapter "Design Principles".