Which Gestalt law states that the human mind combines the visual information available to form a meaningful object rather than seeing it as individual elements?
Answers
Answer:he human brain is wired to see structure, logic, and patterns. It helps us make sense of the world. In the 1920s a group of German psychologists developed theories around how people perceive the world around them, called Gestalt principles.
For example, what do you see when you look at this image?
Source: The Inspired Eye
Source: The Inspired Eye
If you’re like most people, you probably see a triangle. But in reality, all that's there are three white “pac men.” We see the triangle because our brains take the ambiguous visual information and organize it into something that makes sense to us—something familiar, orderly, symmetrical and that we understand.
When this cognitive process kicks in, our minds leap from comprehending all of the elements as individual and unrelated components to seeing the entire shape as a whole. And as a result, we perceive forms and objects where none were created.
To further illustrate this process, check out the GIF below. Your brain sees a dog walking, but it’s nothing more than a series of moving dots.
Source: Gizmodo
Source: Gizmodo
These are simple examples, but they demonstrate the types of shortcuts our brains make all the time to quickly make sense of the world.
What are the Gestalt principles?
These shortcuts are known as the Gestalt principles of visual perception, and they detail how our brains create structure by default. But why is understanding this important for web and mobile design?
Why designers should care about the Gestalt principles
Great designers understand the powerful role that psychology plays in visual perception. What happens when someone’s eye meets your design creations? How does their mind react to the message your piece is sharing? —Laura Busche, Brand Content Strategist at Autodesk
Think about that quote for a minute. When people first see your designs, how do they experience them? To understand what makes UI design work, you need to understand the psychology of human perception.
The fundamental law that governs a Gestalt principle is that we tend to order our experience in a manner that’s regular, orderly, and recognizable. This is what allows us to create meaning in a complex and chaotic world. And having a solid understanding of how these principles work will help you in three ways.
They’ll help you determine which design elements are most effective in a given situation. For example, when to use visual hierarchy, background shading, gradients, and how to group similar items and distinguish different ones.
These psychological principles hold power to influence our visual perception, which allows designers to direct our attention to specific points of focus, get us to take specific actions, and create behavioral change.
And finally, at the highest level, the Gestalt principles help you design products that solve the customer’s problem or meet the user’s need in a way that’s beautiful, pleasing, and intuitive to use.
Gestalt principles and examples
In this article, we’ll discuss seven Gestalt laws or principles that directly apply to modern design, and share some examples of how they’re used in UI design. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but you’ll quickly begin to notice that there’s an overlap between many of the principles and that they all work together fluidly. Now let’s dive in.
Figure-ground
Similarity
Proximity
Common region
Continuity
Closure
Focal point
Explanation:
The Principle of Closure states that the human mind combines the visual information available to form a meaningful object rather than seeing it as individual elements.
Explanation:
- The human mind joins the available visual information to materialize a whole meaningful object, even when the entire object is not present.
- This occurrence is known as the principle of closure.
- The principle of closure asserts that when we look at a composite collection of visual elements, we try to look for a solitary, recognizable pattern.
- In other words, when we see a figure that has missing parts, our brain will fill in the blanks and make a whole image so we can still recognize the pattern.