Psychology of Communication: perception

Perception: Gestalt psychology

The German school of Gestalt psychologists (pronounced G - e - sh - talt) disagreed with the reductionist approaches of other approaches to psychology, particularly behaviourism. They argued that reductionist approaches were fruitless because 'the whole is more than the sum of the parts'. As an example, listen to this brief melody: .

We can still recognise the melody on a different instrument and even when the key and the time signature are radically changed: and even when played on the unlikely combination of a bottle and wood blocks:

There is much criticism of the theoretical basis of Gestalt psychology and many of the Gestalt psychologists' claims are now discounted. On the other hand, however, some of their ideas have been taken up in fields beyond the study of perception, such as group dynamics and Gestalt therapy.

For our purposes, some of the principles they established do seem to hold good in practice and so it's worth taking a quick look at them here. The theoretical basis of Gestalt psychology's hypotheses about the reasons for the way we perceive certain figures may now be considered shaky but the fact remains that we do tend to perceive certain forms in certain ways, and that knowledge can be useful to the artist, designer or communicator in other media.

Good form (Prägnanz)

The word 'Gestalt' means 'form' or 'shape'. Gestalt psychologists were of the view that psychological organization will always be as 'good' as prevailing conditions allow. For Gestalt psychologists form is the primitive unit of perception. When we perceive, we will always pick out form.

Figure/ground

The Rubin vase shown here is an example of this tendency to pick out form. We don't simply see black and white shapes - we see two faces and a vase.

The problem here is that we see the two forms of equal importance. If the source of this message wants us to perceive a vase, then the vase is the intended figure and the black background is the ground. The problem here is a confusion of figure and ground. I can think of examples where I have told my students facts of the biography of big names in communication - for example that Roland Barthes was run over by a lorry or Louis Althusser murdered his wife - only to find later that such facts are the only ones they remember. A similar everyday example is provided by Spooncer:

an attractive presenter appears with a product; she is wearing a 'conservative' dress;

eye-tracking studies show substantial attention to the product; three days later, brand-name recall is high;

an attractive presenter appears with a product; she is wearing a 'revealing' dress;

eye-tracking shows most attention on the presenter; brand-name recall is low.

Spooncer (1992, p.35)

Proximity

Things which are close together in space or time tend to be perceived as grouped together. Thus, if you want your audience to associate the product with the presenter, put them close together; if you want them to perceive two ideas as associated, present them in close proximity.

This appears to be confirmed by experiments conducted by Staats and Staats ( 1958) in which words were presented auditorially to subjects immediately after the visual presentation of a name of a nationality. The words presented auditorially had either positive or negative connotations (e.g. vacation, gift, bitter, failure). Dutch was systematically paired with positive words, Swedish with negative ones. When tested afterwards, subjects rated Dutch more positively than Swedish.

Similarity

Things which are similar are likely to form 'Gestalten' as groups. So in the graphic on the left you probably see an X of fir trees against a background of the others; in the graphic on the right you may see a square of the other trees, partly surrounded by fir trees.

The fact that in one we see an X and in the other a square is, incidentally, an example of good form or Prägnanz

So, if we want our receivers to perceive the elements of our message as belonging together we should try to give them the same shape. There is little in common in the subject matter of the photos below, but the shapes immediately tell us which ones appear to belong together:

SHAPES.GIF GOES HERE

Closure

We can still read WASHO, see the square and read 'perception' despite the missing information.

You probably know that redundancy can be deliberately added into messages to increase the likely fidelity of reception, but the Gestalt psychologists' law of closure suggests that it certainly isn't always necessary.

Indeed, it may be that receivers often prefer to be able to complete messages themselves and there is some evidence to suggest that, for example, advertising in which potential customers are required to play an active rôle in completion of the message is retained for longer. (There is, of course, the danger that they may complete it wrongly!)

Continuity

Where figures are defined by a single unbroken line, they tend to be seen as an entity.

This principle is of course of particular importance in graphic design. Even something as simple as drawing a squiggle to link up apparently disparate elements on a page can be helpful in suggesting to the reader that they are parts of a whole.

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