A century of Gestalt psychology in visual perception: II. Conceptual and theoretical foundations.

Abstract

Our first review paper on the occasion of the centennial anniversary of Gestalt psychology focused on perceptual grouping and figure-ground organization. It concluded that further progress requires a reconsideration of the conceptual and theoretical foundations of the Gestalt approach, which is provided here. In particular, we review contemporary formulations of holism within an information-processing framework, allowing for operational definitions (e.g., integral dimensions, emergent features, configural superiority, global precedence, primacy of holistic/configural properties) and a refined understanding of its psychological implications (e.g., at the level of attention, perception, and decision). We also review four lines of theoretical progress regarding the law of Prägnanz—the brain’s tendency of being attracted towards states corresponding to the simplest possible organization, given the available stimulation. The first considers the brain as a complex adaptive system and explains how self-organization solves the conundrum of trading between robustness and flexibility of perceptual states. The second specifies the economy principle in terms of optimization of neural resources, showing that elementary sensors working independently to minimize uncertainty can respond optimally at the system level. The third considers how Gestalt percepts (e.g., groups, objects) are optimal given the available stimulation, with optimality specified in Bayesian terms. Fourth, Structural Information Theory explains how a Gestaltist visual system that focuses on internal coding efficiency yields external veridicality as a side-effect. To answer the fundamental question of why things look as they do, a further synthesis of these complementary perspectives is required.

Titchener’s ⊥ dissected

“…However, in order to qualify as a testable, neuroscientific hypothesis, the postulation of a Gestalt-type, top-down mechanism would need to be specified (cf. Wagemans et al, 2012). Concerning the figural stimuli, bilateral symmetry might have been what led observers to treat them like ⊥s (Landwehr, 2015a).…”

Infotropism as the underlying principle of perceptual organization

“…Feldman notes that where perceptual organization is mediated by representations of this type, the best interpretation is obtained by a kind of simplicity rule: 'Among all interpretations qualitatively consistent with the image, draw the one that is lowest in the partial order, called the maximumdepth interpretation' (Feldman, 2009, p. 875). Under reasonable assumptions, 10 It is argued that structural information theory faces a considerable challenge in deciding what these are (Wagemans, 1999;Wagemans et al, 2012). Chater comments that one of the problems dogging approaches based on coding theory is that 'the predictions of the theory depend on the description language chosen, and [the fact] that there is no (direct) empirical means of deciding between putative languages' (Chater, 1999, p. 571).…”

“…The attempt to understand the principles of perceptual organization has been underway for well over a century. In the early years of the 20th Century, theorists of the Gestalt school tried to explain perceptual organization in terms of some 114 laws, such as good continuation, symmetry and closure (Pomerantz and Kubovy, 1986;Wagemans et al, 2012) From this set, Boring extracted 14 condensed laws, including naturalness of form and persistence of form (Boring, 1942, pp. 253-254).…”

Perceptual Reversal Guided by Integration Between Bottom-Up Input and Top-Down Feedback Over Time Course

“…The prevailing theory to explain perceptual reversal is neural satiation or fatigue hypothesis (Long & Toppino, 2004;Wagemans et al, 2012). In this view, reversal from one perceptual state to another state occurs if sets of neurons involved in a particular percept undergo satiation or fatigue with continuing inspection of a pattern.…”

“…Evidence for analyzing the identification of a stimulus is given by the external visual world. Size, convexity and symmetry are among these sources of evidence, but other sources may be found in our internal knowledge from experience, such as meaningfulness, familiarity, expectation, and so on (Wagemans et al, 2012). How this evidence is integrated to separate a figure from its background is critically important to resolve ambiguity.…”