GESTALT THEORY: An exercise for 3rd.Level Students

German word with no exact English equivalent, variously defined as completeness, configuration, essence, form, manner, organic structure, totality, and wholeness. At the level of an individual, it means the organized form or pattern that makes up all of a person's experience of what is perceived to be 'out there.
Gestalt experiments show that the brain does not act like a sponge (as a passive receiver of information) but actively filters, structures, and matches all incoming information against known patterns to make sense of it. Gestalt theory was proposed by the Austrian psychologist Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932) in 1890.

Gestalt Laws of Perceptual Organization

The Law of Proximity: Stimulus elements that are closed together tend to be perceived as a group

The Law of Similarity: Similar stimuli tend to be grouped, this tendency can even dominate grouping due to proximity

The Law of Closure: Stimuli tend to be grouped into complete figures

The Law of Good Continuation: Stimuli tend to be grouped as to minimize change or discontinuity

The Law of Symmetry: Regions bound by by symmetrical boarders tend to be perceived as coherent figures

The Law Simplicity: Ambiguous stimuli tend to be resolved in favor of the simplest

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