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Prof. Greg Francis 1 PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes Purdue University Gestalt Psychology PSY 310 Greg Francis Lecture 14 This is a real object! Purdue University Wilhelm Wundt Established the first true psychology laboratory in 1879 University of Leipzig (Germany) Tried to identify basic elements of perception Structuralism Similar to approaches in chemistry/physics Find basic elements of matter (molecules) Find basic elements of molecules (atoms) Find basic elements of atoms (protons, electrons) Find basic elements of…. Along the way you learn about how the basic elements combine to have different properties

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Page 1: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

1PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Gestalt Psychology

PSY 310

Greg Francis

Lecture 14

This is a real object!

Purdue University

Wilhelm Wundt

Established the first true psychology laboratory in 1879 University of Leipzig (Germany)

Tried to identify basic elements ofperception

Structuralism

Similar to approaches in chemistry/physics

Find basic elements of matter (molecules)

Find basic elements of molecules (atoms)

Find basic elements of atoms (protons, electrons)

Find basic elements of….

Along the way you learn about how the basic elementscombine to have different properties

Page 2: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

2PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Structuralism

The basic idea is the perception is based onsensations

Look at the title of your textbook and this class!

Sensations are supposed to be simpler responsesto stimuli

Sensations are identified by introspection

“Looking” inward to identify the basic elements of theexperience

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Structuralism

If you take a bite of an apple, you might describe its basicsensations as

Cold, sweet, crisp

It would be a mistake to refer to it as

apple

Page 3: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

3PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Structuralism

If you could do this for lots of people and lots of stimuli, youmight identify the basic sensory elements of many differentperceptual experiences

Scientific reductionism

It never really worked out

Different people report different basic sensory elements

No set of basic sensory elements seemed to cover lots ofdifferent perceptual experiences

The goal of reduction is still a strong part of perception, butnot along these lines

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Other problems

Some percepts seem problematic for thestructuralist approach

In structuralism, percepts are built of up sensations

So sensations must be necessary to produce percept

What about a stimulus like this?

What sensation contributesto the perception of theillusory contour?

Page 4: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

4PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Other problems

Likewise, there are stimuli where presumablysensations are being gathered, but they do not giverise to a percept

Motion Induced Blindness movie

For that matter, one seems to get entirely new kindsof perceptual experiences from some stimuli

Apparent motion (demo)

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Ambiguous stimuli

There are thousands of stimuli that can be interpreted indifferent ways

Presumably they produce the same sensations, but differentpercepts

Page 5: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

5PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Ambiguous stimuli

There are thousands of stimuli that can be interpreted indifferent ways

Presumably they produce the same sensations, but differentpercepts

Find the man playing the flute

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Ambiguous stimuli

There are thousands ofstimuli that can beinterpreted in different ways

Presumably they producethe same sensations, butdifferent percepts

Find the Dutch girl

Page 6: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

6PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Ambiguous stimuli

There are thousands of stimuli that can be interpreted indifferent ways

Presumably they produce the same sensations, but differentpercepts

It’s not just clever drawings

Much of perception involves ambiguity

More than you realize

Motion

noWobbleGlobe.mov

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Gestalt Psychology The structuralists recognized these kinds of problems for

their approach, but they thought one could eventually dealwith them

Other people advocated an entirely different approach German scientists (Wertheimer, Koffka, Kohler) Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole” Gestalt psychologists suggested that understanding

perception could not be done by breaking it down into parts,but by considering the whole experience The whole is different than the sum of its parts.

One task of perception is to identify how to organize different partsof a visual scene

How to identify objects?

Page 7: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

7PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Perceptual organization What about the image or the visual system allows you to correctly

group different parts of the scene into objects? Similarity: color, texture, orientation Position Familiarity

Gestalt “laws” of perceptual organization

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Similarity Can isolate effects

Page 8: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

8PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Position Can isolate the effect

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Familiarity Having seen this image before, your perceptual organization is

different than the first time

Page 9: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

9PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Good continuation Object have boundaries Generally the boundaries run smoothly

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Good continuation Object have boundaries Generally the boundaries run smoothly

Page 10: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

10PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Good continuation Object have boundaries Generally the boundaries run smoothly

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Common fate Motion in a common direction is one example Can be more complicated than just direction Biomot.mov

Page 11: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

11PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Pragnanz “Good figure” Law of simplicity

The percept you see should be the simplestinterpretation of the scene

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Gestalt Laws They are not really laws, but suggestions about

what the visual system might be doing Most people do not really believe them in the

same way we believe the laws of physics or thelaw of natural selection

In fact, it is fairly easy to show that the Gestaltlaws are not anywhere near a completedescription of perceptual organization

Page 12: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

12PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Impossible figures What is the percept of this image?

Is this “good figure”?

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Impossible figures This is a

photograph ofa real object

Do you see itin the“simplest” waypossible?

Page 13: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

13PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Impossible figures This is a

photograph of areal object

Do you see it inthe “simplest”way possible?

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Conclusions Structural psychology

Gestalt psychology

Rules of perceptual organization

Impossible figures

Page 14: Gestalt Psychology - psych.purdue.edugfrancis/Classes/PSY310/L14b.pdf · Gestalt Psychology The ... Gestalt is a German word that roughly means “whole ... What about the image or

Prof. Greg Francis

14PSY 310: Sensory and Perceptual Processes

Purdue University

Next time

Perceiving objects

Figure-ground relationships