The Gestalt Principles

In this video, we turn our attention from sensation to perception. We focus on the ways in which we perceive, illusions that mess with our perpetual experiences, and finally, the Gestalt Principles.

Bottom-Up Processing: Perceiving the parts and using them to create the whole.

Top-Down Processing: Beliefs and expectations about the whole are used to process the parts.

Perceptual Hypotheses: Educated guesses that we make while interpreting sensory information to generate a perceptual set.

Perceptual Set: A predisposition to perceive things in a certain way, driven by our expectations.

Perceptual Constancy: We perceive stimuli consistently across varied conditions; there are many forms of perceptual constancy, including color constancy and size constancy.

Gestalt Psychology: A field of psychology which assumes that the brain creates a perception that is more than the sum of the available sensory inputs, and it does so in predictable ways (the Gestalt Principles).

Proximity: The first of the Gestalt Principles, which states that objects close together tend to go together.

Similarity: The second of the Gestalt Principles, which states that similar things tend to go together more than dissimilar things.

Continuity: The third of the Gestalt Principles, which states that we are more likely to perceive continuous, smooth flowing lines rather than jagged, broken lines.

Closure: The fourth of the Gestalt Principles, which states that we organize our perceptions into complete objects rather than a series of disconnected parts.

Symmetry: The fifth of the Gestalt Principles, which states that symmetrical objects are more likely to be arranged as wholes than non-symmetrical objects.

Figure-Ground: The sixth of the Gestalt Principles, which states that we make an instantaneous decision to focus our attention on what we believe to be the central figure and largely ignore what we believe to be the background.

[bryanwu]

the 5 people who disliked this video didn't want to be told that "the man read the newspaper at lunchtime"

[manjusomu]

Thank you...concept is now clear
..god bless you abundantly 😊

[JudiChristopher]

EXCELLENT VIDEO
Thank you for sharing this video.

[michilineigayemi]

Nice explanations ... very clear ... thank you

[shyunuw]

You did an excellent job. I subscribed your clip.

[felicianomendozaiii]

this is very helpful... thank you so much!

[laem]

it's easier to follow and very helpful, thank you.

[tabeenasif]

this the best video I have watched so far. You are truly blessing from heavens.

[fedorvoronovcomposer]

10:03 I thought two objects were whole, but one is more beautiful, or organised to phrase things better, and the other – mildly disturbing, due to complete lack of proportion, but the object is also more unique, baroque, so to speak..

[crazy-boy]

The first one didn't work for me, so I gave up on the rest. And I'm still hearing it as someone playing with glass

[zaneaura]

The ABC example I read as A13C bc that is something that makes sense to me as hexadecimal

[glydeltambong]

This will help us. Such a big help . 💞 @PasokFloraMae

[Jspore-iprk]

The sign wave speech example baffled me lol

[sh]

but try the test saying: "nice sfphvaesces". THEN what you people see?

[Dramazy]

Weirdly enough I could tell that it was a person talking...

[Carlos]

It seems to me that top-down processing isn't simply a matter of belief and/or expectation, but the actual perception of the whole as a whole prior to believing anything about it. That whole then provides an organizing context for the parts giving them not only meaning, but also being, in the sense that what the parts are is a function of how they're embedded in the context provided by the perceived whole. I'm intentionally using the term "perceived" here to indicate an actual percept, rather than a belief or expectation.

Taking a common example, we don't perceive musical melody as a collection of parts, but as a whole that embraces the parts giving them whatever meaning and being they have within that already perceived melody. We don't have a belief about the melody anymore than we have a belief about the taste of carrots. The melody is directly perceived as a whole phenomenon held in awareness as the various notes and silences occur in the present moment already embedded in the whole percept of the melody held within our mind.

Unfortunately, we too often begin with belief rather than remaining open to the emerging perceptual gestalt we might apprehend if we came to our experience from a space of open, silent, unattached, awareness. For instance, we have beliefs about the nature of other people and tend to fit everything we experience of them within the context of our beliefs rather than attuning to a felt-sense of the whole person being gifted to us within an open field of awareness.

In my thinking, ultimate Reality is that primal gestalt or absolute wholistic form within which and from which all seeming parts derive the full substance of their meaning and being. Depending on your culture you might use words like God or Brahman or Being to name such a primal gestalt. Just imagine how reality would appear to someone who experiences their world and their life in that world from a direct perception of that primal gestalt beyond all possible belief structures which, of course, are already wholly contained within and derive their meaning and being from their total belonging to this ultimate Whole.