Behavior: Basic Psychology of the User - Foundations for Designing User-Centered Systems - page 100

Table 4.4 The Gestalt principles of visual grouping

Proximity Elements that are close together appear as groups rather than as a random

cluster of elements

Similarity Elements with the same shape or color are seen as belonging together

Common fate Elements which appear to move together are grouped together

Good continuation,
continuity

Elements that can be grouped into lines or shapes will be

Closure Missing parts of the figure are filled into complete it, so that it appears as

a whole

Symmetry Regions bounded by symmetrical borders tend to be perceived as

coherent figures

Figure-ground The geometric organization that is perceived is the one with the best,

simplest, and most stable shape. For example, four dots arranged as if
they were at the corners of a square will be perceived as a square
rather than a triangle plus an extra dot

based on a fixed number of objects you can track, then you cannot expect users to
follow more than three or four objects on the screen.

4.5.4 Gestalt Principles of Grouping

The Gestalt principles of visual grouping (listed in Table 4.4 ) can be used to
explain how groups of objects are interpreted. The principles were developed as a
rebellion against the simplistic notion that perception could be structurally ana-
lyzed into its component parts, and that complex ideas were the result of associ-
ating together simpler ones. This simplistic view dominated psychology in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Gestalt principles allow that the
whole can be more than just the sum of the parts.
Gestaltists focused on the fact that there are important aspects of form and
structure. We see the world as composed of discrete objects of various sizes that
are seen against a background comprised of textured surfaces. The spatial and
temporal relationships between elements are as important as the absolute size,
location, or nature of the elements themselves, and a sensation-based account of
perception fails to capture this. Some of the principles of visual grouping are
illustrated in Fig. 4.15 .

4.5.5 Other Theories of High Level Visual Perception

There are several other views of visual perception apart from the psycho-physi-
ological one we have described. These views tend to deal more with perception-as-
phenomenological-experience or perception-in-information-processing rather than