The pattern matching mechanism inherent in the brain enables us to detect structure, form, and organization in our surroundings so that we can recognize meaningful objects wherever we direct our attention to. Gestalt psychology constitutes one of the oldest theories that try to understand how this perceptual organization works by studying four concepts which will be introduced in this blog post.
Most of us take it for granted that we all are equipped with an extremely powerful information processor – the best that evolution could come up with. The puzzling thing about the brain is though, that it accomplishes the most sophisticated tasks imaginable with a very simple trick: It matches patterns. But the brain is so good at this that it can make sense of incomplete, distorted, and even contradictory sensory information.
Indeed, we owe it to this capability of the brain, to the fact that it will seek and instantly detect structure, form, and organization wherever we direct our attention to, that we don’t perceive a chaotic manifestation of dissociated lines, curves, and shapes when we look around us, but meaningful objects. This allows us to rapidly scan our surroundings for elements that we require to accomplish our objectives without dedicating time and attentional resources to irrelevant or superfluous details.
On the other hand, the simplicity of the mechanism that the brain uses to create meaning makes us vulnerable to misconceptions. It was indeed through the study of optical illusions and experimental research in cognitive sciences that gestalt psychology was developed. It is a field that is still actively pursued by scholars and is taught by concentrating on four key concepts: emergence, reification, invariance, and multi-stability and a number of so-called gestalt principles, elementary insights into how human perception is organized, which I will introduce one by one in a later blog post. But in order to understand the principles, it is important to first have a grasp of the gestalt concepts, which are the topic of this article, so let’s take a look at them in detail.
Emergence
The basic premise of gestalt psychology is that perception does not occur through a process of identifying and piecing together constituent elements of a scene. On the contrary, we identify complete and meaningful objects instantly, using no conscious effort. This is a result of the fact that the brain works by matching patterns, which is a type of memory process that occurs when a neural activity associated with a previous event (e.g., seeing a cat) is stimulated by a new, similar event (e.g., seeing another cat). We call this recognition.
Over time, frequently used pattern associations in the brain are reinforced, making us particularly sensitive to stimulation of these from new instances that might only bear a slight resemblance to them. Thus, as soon as the image of an object partially matches the representation of a familiar object, the brain associates these in whole, so that an entire image emerges. The brain may on later inspection confirm or reject the found association but the primary mechanism of how we see things is by the perceptual experience of meaningful objects appearing instantly and unconsciously from a scene, just like the dalmatian dog in the below image – once you recognize it. This is called emergence.
Another way of putting this is that human perception is the association of whole object images with familiar, meaningful patterns. Our cognition is thus biased by our prior experiences, our current context, as well as our aims and objectives which determine the degree to which visual stimuli match existing mental representations stored in long-term memory. A perceived pattern is hence meaningful for us to the degree that it correlates with our subjective expectations which should serve to emphasize the well-known fact that people experience visuals subjectively not objectively. We might therefore suggest that we see with our brains and not our eyes.
Reification
Our visual system attempts to help construct a complete image in the mind to make a scene more meaningful and less confusing, even when we are only provided with parts of that scene, such as when an object is obscured by other objects. Without this capability, if our ancestors tried to see the complete image of a predator every time, they might not have survived. And it would be difficult for us to operate in three dimensions where we often do not see a complete view of our surroundings and objects within it. Therefore, our perception has to fill in the blanks to help us form a complete and meaningful mental representation of every visual scene.
Reification is the conversion of an abstract concept into something concrete. Our urge to make sense of the world is so strong, that our visual system will sometimes interpret blank space, such as the apparent triangle in the Kanizsa Figure below, as a whole object. In other words, the brain matches incomplete or non-discernable visual cues with a specific pattern.
Emergence and reification are two aspects of the same pattern matching ability. We speak of the former to emphasize the fact that when the brain finds a match between a perceived partial pattern and a whole stored object pattern in the memory, it replaces the partial pattern with the whole pattern suddenly and unconsciously. We speak of the latter to emphasize the fact that by the mentioned replacement the partial pattern becomes whole. Gestalt psychology helps us understand how complex 3D scenes are mapped onto a 2D canvas, whether we are dealing with an artwork, a photograph, or the user interface of a computer.
Invariance
Invariance is a third manifestation of the pattern matching skills of the brain and relates to how it can naturally skew, resize, and transform partial patterns in memory to associate them with different views of familiar whole object images. It is able to do this, because it does not memorize images as such but extracts key characteristics it recognizes in them and stores these as feature patterns instead.
The ability to unconsciously, instantly, and effortlessly perceive things as constant regardless of variations of orientation, size, shape, color, etc. is key to living in a three-dimensional environment that continuously changes. Without it, we would have to rethink things every second to account for changes in distance, perspective, illumination, and so on.
Therefore, invariance is another concept that we have to be aware of for translating 3D experiences into two dimensions. However, there are limits to invariance. To prevent false assumptions and perspective illusions, we often must use recognizable objects and distance cues as size and shape references in ambiguous scenes, as lighting and color variations in the environment can trick the senses and alter the perception of viewers.
Multi-Stability
When scenes are ambiguous and present two or more meaningful interpretations, we experience a sensation of switching between them. This perceptual phenomenon is referred to as multi-stability and occurs by and large out of our control. It is caused by the lack of a one-on-one matching of a perceived partial image and stored patterns in memory. Unless a scene is accompanied by some descriptive text or somebody points out an interpretation to us, we are often oblivious to the alternative view but once our visual system has detected the presence of another meaningful form, we experience multi-stability.
This effect is seldomly observed, except when images are specifically prepared to measure the consequences of conditioning, such as the Rubin’s Vase illusion shown above, where the viewer’s point of focus determines if she/he sees two faces or a vase. It is indicative of the fact that we cannot always uniquely resolve perceptual experiences. Interpreting visuals is subjective and depends among other things on where the viewer directs her/his attention. Clear separation of foreground and background is key to capturing distinctive images, unless, of course, we wish to be playful with the perception of viewers.
Conclusion
Gestalt psychology studies four concepts: emergence, reification, invariance, and multi-stability to explain the consequences of the pattern matching mechanism of the brain. These concepts are key for understanding the gestalt laws of perceptual organization, which I will introduce in a later blog post. The main takeaway from this article should be that we do not see by putting together constituent parts of a scene but rather that meaningful and whole object patterns emerge when recognition occurs.
If you wish to learn in-depth how gestalt psychology can be employed for user experience, user interface, app, and web design, take the online course GESTALT THEORY FOR WEB/UX/UI/APP DESIGNERS offered by Inspiraition.com at Udemy. This course contains essential material for any designer who wishes to learn to create websites and apps that account for cognitive biases of visitors and that appeal to their subconscious minds by catering to how the human perceptual system works.
Aischa Erten’s book GESTALT IN PHOTOGRAPHY is an excellent source for learning to apply gestalt psychology in photography. You can buy the book at Amazon.