Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 Module 
13 
Perceptual Organization: Constructing Our View of the World 
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concentrate on the overall form. Figure 2b demonstrates the 
principle of proximity : We perceive elements that are closer 
together as grouped together. As a result, we tend to see pairs 
of dots rather than a row of single dots in Figure 2b. 
Elements that are similar in appearance we perceive as 
grouped together. We see, then, horizontal rows of circles and 
squares in Figure 2c rather than vertical mixed columns. 
Finally, in a general sense, the overriding gestalt principle is 
simplicity : When we observe a pattern, we perceive it in the 
most basic, straightforward manner that we can. For example, 
most of us see Figure 2d as a square with lines on two sides, 
rather than as the block letter W on top of the letter M . If we 
have a choice of interpretations, we generally opt for the sim-
pler one. 
Although gestalt psychology no longer plays a prominent 
role in contemporary psychology, its legacy endures. One fun-
damental gestalt principle that remains infl uential is that two 
objects considered together form a whole that is different 
from the simple combination of the objects. Gestalt psycholo-
gists argued that the perception of stimuli in our environment 
goes well beyond the individual elements that we sense. 
Instead, it represents an active, constructive process carried 
out within the brain (Humphreys & Müller, 2000; Lehar, 2003; 
van der Helm, 2006) (see Figure 3). 
Top-Down and Bottom-Up 
Processing
Ca- yo- re-d t-is -en-en-e, w-ic- ha- ev-ry -hi-d l-tt-r m-ss-ng? It probably won’t take 
you too long to fi gure out that it says, “Can you read this sentence, which has every 
third letter missing?” 
If perception were based primarily on breaking down a stimulus into its most 
basic elements, understanding the sentence, as well as other ambiguous stimuli, 
would not be possible. The fact that you were probably able to recognize such an 
imprecise stimulus illustrates that perception proceeds along two different avenues, 
called top-down processing and bottom-up processing. 
In