Gestalt Principles

It might very well be that the Gestalt Principles of Perception act as the Geometry of Cognition. Geometry is a way to abstractly represent and describe the relationships between points, lines, planes, areas, surfaces and volumes in physical space -- a way to represent and understand physical matter -- the arrangement of objects in space and their relationship to other objects.

What if the Gestalt Principles of Perceptions are to mental space what Geometric Principles are to physical space? What if the Gestalt Principles provide the rules that give rise to the shape of cognition, rather than merely just applying to the principles of visual perception? What if the Gestalt Principles extend further - and are more widely applicable - than we thought? While this may seem a very obvious question to ask, it isn't really, if you imagine these principles as quite literally determining parameters for how information is perceived, processed and eventually filed in human memory.

Lists of the Gestalt Principles seem highly variable in their content but here is a list that seems quite complete:

- Proximity (objects close together in space are thought to belong together; are grouped together)
- Similarity (similar objects are grouped together)
- Continuity (we strive for good continuity; a break or disruption can be overlooked and perceived as continuous)
- Closure (we strive to close or complete an open shape)
- Smallness (smaller things are perceived to be foreground objects first, rather than objects that are farther away)

http://www.artinarch.com/vp12.html


From Wikipedia:
A notable weakness with the Gestalt laws of Prägnanz is that they are descriptive not explanatory.

My thoughts on this: Of course they are descriptive. They rely on external input from the world around us. Our perceptions are judgements that we make on the world around us based on fuzzy information that involve thresholds and contextual information. We perceive things based on what's around, based on the context. It's an assessment of the figure/ground relationship that is cited as a fundamental component of the Gestalt Principles.

On another topic: Someone should take a look at the Reiser file system and see how this could represent information in human memory. The Reiser file system is a very interesting model.