As the figure below shows, our perception can vary tremendously, depending on what is perceived as figure and what is perceived as ground. Figure is the object or person that is the focus of the visual field, while the ground is the background. According to this principle, we tend to segment our visual world into figure and ground. One Gestalt principle is the figure-ground relationship. This perspective has been supported by modern cognitive science through fMRI research demonstrating that some parts of the brain, specifically the lateral occipital lobe, and the fusiform gyrus, are involved in the processing of whole objects, as opposed to the primary occipital areas that process individual elements of stimuli (Kubilius, Wagemans & Op de Beeck, 2011). ![]() They are also aimed at understanding sensory and perception as processing information as groups or wholes instead of constructed wholes from many small parts. Gestalt perspectives in psychology represent investigations into ambiguous stimuli to determine where and how these ambiguities are being resolved by the brain. As a result, Gestalt psychology has been extremely influential in the area of sensation and perception (Rock & Palmer, 1990). Gestalt psychologists translated these predictable ways into principles by which we organize sensory information. In other words, the brain creates a perception that is more than simply the sum of available sensory inputs, and it does so in predictable ways. The word gestalt literally means form or pattern, but its use reflects the idea that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. This belief led to a new movement within the field of psychology known as Gestalt psychology. ![]() Wertheimer, and his assistants Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, who later became his partners, believed that perception involved more than simply combining sensory stimuli. In the early part of the 20th century, Max Wertheimer published a paper demonstrating that individuals perceived motion in rapidly flickering static images-an insight that came to him as he used a child’s toy tachistoscope.
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