Describe and evaluate the Gestalt laws of perceptual organization.

by jazza282 (student)

The Gestalt laws of perceptual organization were born from the belief that previous explanations of perception in human beings were too simplistic. The Gestaltists, namely Wertheimer, Kohler and Koffka, German professors working at Frankfurt University in the 1930’s, believed that a theory of perception could only be considered absolute if it could account for our every day perceptions, and for the phenomenological experiences that are common in every day. Their beliefs challenged the ‘structuralist’ school of thought, in which perception was believed to be a result of the reactions of individual elements. On the contrary, the Gestaltists afforded great importance to the idea that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” and, in particular, the organization of visual elements into a ‘Gestalt’ which means ‘whole’. In particular they proffered that we usually see a world that is stable and organised and that perception of an ambiguous figure is not typical.

It is therefore the purpose of this essay to describe and explain the 6 main principles that illustrate this belief. These are: the law of proximity, the law of similarity, good continuation, common fate, closure and figure ground. Also I will briefly discuss the law of Pragnanz - the fundamental principle of the Gestaltists which is apparent in changing forms throughout all 6 laws. Whilst receiving great acclaim at the time of publication there have been several criticisms concerning the Gestalt laws, in particular regarding methodology, validity and credibility these I will also address in this essay.

I believe that the laws of proximity, similarity and common fate can be examined collectively as, during all three processes, the visual system goes through the act of grouping elements to infer a structure that is not actually present in the stimulus. Firstly, the law of proximity, in the simplest terms, states that things that are near to each other will be grouped together. For example, as shown by Eysenck and Keane, from out of a random display of circles, horizontal rows are perceived, rather than vertical columns due to the fact that the distance between the circles horizontally is shorter than distance between the circles vertically i.e. they are ‘closer’ together. The second law, of similarity, states that elements that have similar visual properties will be grouped together. For example, if we replace every second circle with a square, we will then perceive vertical columns rather than horizontal rows because the elements in the vertical columns are similar visually. Finally, the third law, common fate, states that visual elements that appear to move together will be grouped together. This can be seen most strikingly in Johansson’s (1973) ‘walking man’ experiment, in which a display of white dots on a black background was presented to participants. Presented as so, the dots were unambiguous in shape and did not form a gestalt. When, however “the motion of the living body was represented by a few bright spots describing the motions of the main joints... adequate motion combinations in proximal stimulus evoke a compelling impression of a human walking.” (Johansson, 1973). This demonstrates how sparse stimuli can be grouped together using common fate.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Secondly, I shall explain the laws of good continuation, closure and figure ground. It is possible to group these laws thus because, unlike the previous laws, they are less concerned with grouping of visual elements but instead focus on identifying a complete object from sparse and incomplete stimuli. The law of good continuation states that, if confronted with an ambiguous pattern, we will seek to identify elements that have an established direction and will perceive a shape that is not actually present in the stimuli for example 2 lines crossing instead of 4 individual lines as in show in Eysenck and Keane. In a similar fashion, the law of closure states that the perceptual system tends to favour patterns that produce ‘closed’ rather than ‘open’ structures. A real life example where we see both laws working simultaneously is the process of grouping of stars into constellations. A feature that is common through both laws is that gaps and irregularities tend to get ignored in order to create and preserve continuity. The final law, figure ground, is a process of identifying and distinguishing two separate ‘parts’ of visual stimuli so that one becomes the ‘figure’ dominating at the forefront and standing out from the rest of the image which then assumes the background. According to Koffka, the ground itself is as important as the figure because “the ground serves as a framework in which the figure is suspended and thereby determines the figure” (Koffka, 1935).

No explanation of the Gestalt laws would be complete without mention of the law of Pragnanz. Grika says “The law of Pragnanz says that we try to experience things in as good a gestalt way as possible. In this sense, "good" can mean several things, such as regular, orderly, simplistic, symmetrical, etc." (Grika, 2005) therefore it is no challenge to see this fundamental principle represented, in changing forms, in every law.

It cannot be ignored that the Gestaltists revolutionised the field of perceptual psychology. It was the first cognitive theory to take a strong holistic approach and the suggestion that perception as a process recognized organized wholes was original and innovative. Furthermore, it “addressed the problem in a more detailed fashion than had the structuralists...” (Friedenberg and Silverman, 2006). Despite this, the approach has received several criticisms. Most significantly, the criticisms surround the methodology of the Gestaltists research. Making use of the phenomenological approach in experiments, which relies up on the individual reporting their subjective experiences, does not make for the most reliable of data. As Rookes and Wilson say “this method is no longer seen as scientifically valid” (Rookes and Wilson, 2000, p45.) The law of Pragnanz, for example, says that we organize the world into best and simplest shapes; however the Gestaltists did not provide any “effective means of assessing what shape is the simplest and best” (Eysenck and Keane, 2000). As a result, qualitative, rather than quantative data makes up the majority of the research output therefore it can be argued that, due to the lack of empirically derived data, we cannot accept the laws as absolute .

On a similar theme, it was pointed out by Eysenck and Keane that “Most Gestalt laws were derived from the study of static two-dimensional figures”. This raises the question as to whether the Gestalt laws can be applied to real life settings, where stimuli are considerably more complex. However, according to Rookes and Wilson, Navon (1977) conducted a controlled, more empirical experiment and he found we tend to “perceive whole figures before we analyse the component part”. However, the issue becomes apparent again in that as a result of using such basic, 2D stimuli, often two or more of the laws are required to work simultaneously, and, as it pointed out by Friedenberg and Silverman, the organisational laws “fail to make predictions” about the result of such a happening. As Eysenck and Keane point out “the Gestaltists de-emphasised the complexities involved when laws of grouping are in conflict.”

Furthermore, it became apparent to Julesz (1975) that in real life settings, other environmental factors have an effect on perception. He conducted an experiment in which brightness and colour were manipulated and found that this had a significant effect on perceptual organization. Similarly he found that granularity, or the way elements in a region are distributed, likewise had an effect. Therefore it is possible to say for the laws to be considered absolute, other factors must be identified and investigated in order to produce a more complete and coherent explanation. Nevertheless, as Rock and Palmer (1990) point out “the laws...have withstood the test of time. In fact, not one of them has been refuted, and no new ones have been added”.

A final point concerning the Gestalt laws of perceptual organization is that, whilst they are detailed in description, the explanation is often lacking. In fact, the Gestaltists have been criticised for over-simplifying a very complex process by not providing sufficient supporting evidence. This is particularly apparent in the Gestaltist doctrine of isomorphism, which, in the simplest terms, states that there are ‘electrical field forces’ which reflect the visual experience by corresponding processes in the brain or, in the words of Kohler himself "a kind of physiological short-circuit in the brain" (Kohler, 1912). Kohler, however, did not provide any tenable evidence or ever exhibit a sufficient understanding of the brains neural mechanisms to ever fully prove this theory, and it has since dropped out of the equation.

To conclude, it can be said that Gestaltist methodology is quite weak. They rely upon the subjective, phenomenological experiences of participants so that data produced is often qualitative and, as a result, less empirical in nature than that of other approaches which in turn reduces validity. Ecological validity, also, has posed a problem for the Gestaltists; stimulus present in the real world is considerably more complex than 2D lines and circles. The Gestaltists often produced very simplistic and rather vague explanations for quite complex processes, for example, the notion of isomorphism. Finally, since publication in the late 1930’s, other factors that were not considered by the Gestaltists have been identified suggesting the laws of perceptual organization are not definite and could be expanded upon. Despite this, there is no denying that the Gestalt way of thinking was extremely influential in the field of perceptual psychology. It can be summed up in this quote from Shultz and Shultz “the Gestalt movement left an indelible imprint on psychology and influenced work on perception, learning, thinking, personality, social psychology and motivation...Gestalt psychology retained a separate identity.” (Schultz and Schultz, 2011).

References

Primary Sources

Eyenck, M.V., Keane, T.K (2006) Cognitive Psychology: A Students Handbook – 5th Ed. East Sussex: Psychology Press

Friendenberg, J., Silverman, G (2006) Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Study of Mind – 1st Ed. London: Sage Publications

Johannson, G (1973) Perception and Psychophysics. Visual perception of biological motion and a model for its analysis. Vol 14, No. 2, 201-202

Koffka, K (1935) Principles of Gestalt Pyschology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.

Kohler, W (1920) Wolfgang Köhler and Gestalt theory: an English translation of Köhler's Introduction to die physischen Gestalten for Philosophers and Biologists. 1, 21-6

Luchins ,A.S.(1951) Psychological View. An Evaluation of some current criticisms of Gestalt psychology work on perception. 58,69-95

Rookes, P., Wilson, J (2000) Perception: Theory, Development, and Organisation. London: Routledge

Schultz, D.P., Shultz, S.E (2011) A History of Modern Psychology – 10th Es. Wadsworth: Cenage Learning

Secondary Sources

Navon (1977)

Grika (2005)