Gestalt Psychology Reflection

Think about when one sees the series of flashing lights and how often they appear to

be moving, take for example neon signs or strands of Christmas lights. Well, according to

Gestalt psychology, this movement happens because of the missing information our minds

are filling in. The belief that   the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts led to the

discovery of several different phenomena that occurring during perception (K. Cherry, 2014.)

According to the Cherry (2014) website Gestalt psychology was founded by German thinkers

Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka and focused on how people interpret the

world. The Gestalt perspective formed partially as a response to the structuralism of Wilhelm

Wundt, who focused on breaking down mental events and experiences to the smallest

elements. According to Gestalt psychology, the whole is different than the sum of its parts.

Based upon this belief, Gestalt psychologists developed a set of principles to explain

perceptual organization, or how smaller objects are grouped to form larger ones.

These principles are often referred to as the "laws of perceptual organization" (K.

Cherry, 2014.) Gestalt laws of perceptual organization are similarity suggest that things that

are   proximity,   continuity, similarity, closure,   simplicity and, Figure/ground.   Examples of each

of these laws will be given. An example of proximity is the Adidas logo. The logo may not

create any specific form, our minds create an order and cohesiveness because of how close

the shapes are to one another. Blinking lights that create an illusion of motion is continuity.

Example of similarity can be describe as taking 10 h's, 10 q's , 10 n's and, 10 p's to the train

eye one would see them as four rows of letters instead of   ten columns of letters is similarity

The NBC logo is a great example of closure while   there is no peacock our brains trains our

minds to see the shape...