Principles of grouping

The principles of grouping (or Gestalt laws of grouping) are a set of principles in psychology, first
proposed by Gestalt psychologists to account for the observation that humans naturally perceive objects as
organized patterns and objects, a principle known as Prägnanz. Gestalt psychologists argued that these
principles exist because the mind has an innate disposition to perceive patterns in the stimulus based on
certain rules. These principles are organized into five categories: Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure,
and Connectedness.[1][2][3][4]

Irvin Rock and Steve Palmer, who are acknowledged as having built upon the work of Max Wertheimer
and others and to have identified additional grouping principles,[5] note that Wertheimer's laws have come
to be called the "Gestalt laws of grouping" but state that "perhaps a more appropriate description" is
"principles of grouping."[6][7] Rock and Palmer helped to further Wertheimer's research to explain human
perception of groups of objects and how whole objects are formed from parts which are perceived.

Proximity
The Gestalt law of proximity states that "objects or shapes that are
close to one another appear to form groups". Even if the shapes,
sizes, and objects are radically different, they will appear as a group
if they are close.

Law of Proximity Refers to the way smaller elements are "assembled" in a

composition.
Also called "grouping", the principle concerns the effect
generated when the collective presence of the set of elements becomes more meaningful
than their presence as separate elements. (It also depends on a correct order for
comprehension.)
Grouping the words also changes the visual and psychological meaning of the composition
in non-verbal ways unrelated to their meaning.
Elements which are grouped together create the illusion of shapes or planes in space, even
if the elements are not touching.
Grouping of this sort can be achieved with tone or value, color, shape, size, or other physical
attributes.

Similarity
The principle of similarity states that perception lends itself to seeing stimuli that physically resemble each
other as part of the same object. This allows for people to distinguish between adjacent and overlapping
objects based on their visual texture and resemblance. Other stimuli that have different features are generally
not perceived as part of the object. An example of this is a large area of land used by numerous independent
farmers to grow crops. The human brain uses similarity to distinguish between objects which might lie
adjacent to or overlap with each other based upon their visual texture. Each farmer may use a unique
planting style which distinguishes his field from another. Another example is a field of flowers which differ
only by color.
 The principles of similarity and proximity often work together to
form a Visual Hierarchy. Either principle can dominate the other,
depending on the application and combination of the two. For
example, in the grid to the left, the similarity principle dominates the
proximity principle; the rows are probably seen before the columns.

Law of Similarity

Closure
The principle of closure refers to the mind's tendency to see
complete figures or forms even if a picture is incomplete, partially
hidden by other objects, or if part of the information needed to
make a complete picture in the minds is missing. For example, if
part of a shape's border is missing people still tend to see the shape
as completely enclosed by the border and ignore the gaps. This
Law of Closure reaction stems from the mind's natural tendency to recognize
patterns that are familiar and thus fill in any information that may be
missing.

Closure is also thought to have evolved from ancestral survival instincts in that if one was to partially see a
predator their mind would automatically complete the picture and know that it was a time to react to
potential danger even if not all the necessary information was readily available.

Good continuation
When there is an intersection between two or more objects, people
tend to perceive each object as a single uninterrupted object. This
allows differentiation of stimuli even when they come in visual
overlap. Humans have a tendency to group and organize lines or
curves that follow an established direction over those defined by
sharp and abrupt changes in direction.

Law of good continuation

Common fate
When visual elements are seen moving in the same
direction at the same rate (optical flow), perception
associates the movement as part of the same stimulus.
For example, birds may be distinguished from their
background as a single flock because they are moving
in the same direction and at the same velocity, even
when each bird is seen—from a distance—as little
more than a dot. The moving 'dots' appear to be part of
a unified whole. Similarly, two flocks of birds can
cross each other in a viewer's visual field, but they will
nonetheless continue to be experienced as separate
Law of common fate—a flock of birds flocks because each bird has a direction common to its
flock.

This allows people to make out moving objects even when other details (such as the objects color or
outline) are obscured. This ability likely arose from the evolutionary need to distinguish a camouflaged
predator from its background.

The law of common fate is used extensively in user-interface design, for example where the movement of a
scrollbar is synchronised with the movement (i.e. cropping) of a window's content viewport; the movement
of a physical mouse is synchronised with the movement of an on-screen arrow cursor, and so on.

Good form
The principle of good form refers to the tendency to group together
forms of similar shape, pattern, color, etc. Even in cases where two
or more forms clearly overlap, the human brain interprets them in a
way that allows people to differentiate different patterns and/or
shapes. An example would be a pile of presents where a dozen
packages of different size and shape are wrapped in just three or so
Principle of good form
patterns of wrapping paper, or the Olympic Rings.

See also
Global precedence
Neural processing for individual categories of objects
Pattern recognition
Perception
Structural information theory
Theory of indispensable attributes

References
1. cf. Gray, Peter O. (2006): Psychology, 5th ed., New York: Worth, p. 281. ISBN 978-0-7167-
 0617-5
2. Wolfe et al. 2008, pp. 78, 80.
3. Goldstein 2009, pp. 105–107.
4. Banerjee 1994, pp. 107–108.
5. Weiten 1998, pp. 144.
6. Palmer, Neff & Beck 1997, pp. 63.
7. Palmer 2003, pp. 180–181.

Bibliography
Banerjee, J. C. (1994). "Gestalt Theory of Perception". Encyclopaedic Dictionary of
Psychological Terms. M.D. Publications Pvt. Ltd. pp. 107–109. ISBN 978-81-85880-28-0.
Goldstein, E. Bruce (2009). "Perceiving Objects and Scenes § The Gestalt Approach to
Object Perception". Sensation and perception (8th ed.). Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0-
495-60149-4.
Palmer, Stephen; Neff, Jonathan; Beck, Diane (1997). "Grouping and Amodal Perception". In
Rock, Irvin (ed.). Indirect perception. MIT Press/Bradford Books series in cognitive
psychology. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-18177-8.
Palmer, Stephen E. (2003). "Visual Perception of Objects". In Healy, Alice F.; Proctor, Robert
W.; Weiner, Irving B. (eds.). Handbook of Psychology: Experimental psychology. Vol. 4. John
Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-39262-0.
Weiten, Wayne (1998). Psychology: themes and variations (4th ed.). Brooks/Cole Pub. Co.
ISBN 978-0-534-34014-8.
Wolfe, Jeremy M.; Kluender, Keith R.; Levi, Dennis M.; Bartoshuk, Linda M.; Herz, Rachel S.;
Klatzky, Roberta L.; Lederman, Susan J. (2008). "Gestalt Grouping Principles" (https://web.ar
chive.org/web/20110723150836/http://www.sinauer.com/wolfe/chap4/gestaltF.htm).
Sensation and Perception (http://www.sinauer.com/wolfe/chap4/gestaltF.htm) (2nd ed.).
Sinauer Associates. ISBN 978-0-87893-938-1. Archived from the original (http://www.sinaue
r.com./wolfe/chap4/gestaltF.htm) on 2011-07-23.

Further reading
Enns, James T. (2003): Gestalt Principles of Perception. In: Lynn Nadel (Ed.), Encyclopedia
of Cognitive Science, London: Nature Publishing Group.
Todorovic, Dejan (2008). "Gestalt principles" (https://doi.org/10.4249%2Fscholarpedia.5345).
Scholarpedia. 3 (12): 5345. Bibcode:2008SchpJ...3.5345T (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/ab
s/2008SchpJ...3.5345T). doi:10.4249/scholarpedia.5345 (https://doi.org/10.4249%2Fscholar
pedia.5345).
Palmer, S.E. (1999). Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-
262-16183-1.

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