Abstract
Although symmetry has been discussed in terms of a major law of perceptual organization since the early conceptual efforts of the Gestalt school (Wertheimer, Metzger, Koffka and others), the first quantitative measurements testing for effects of symmetry on processes of Gestalt formation have seen the day only recently. In this study, a psychophysical rating study and a “foreground”-“background” choice response time experiment were run with human observers to test for effects of bilateral symmetry on the perceived strength of figure-ground in triangular Kanizsa configurations. Displays with and without bilateral symmetry, identical physically-specified-to-total contour ratio, and constant local contrast intensity within and across conditions, but variable local contrast polarity and variable orientation in the plane, were presented in a random order to human observers. Configurations with bilateral symmetry produced significantly stronger figure-ground percepts reflected by greater subjective magnitudes and consistently higher percentages of “foreground” judgments accompanied by significantly shorter response times. These effects of symmetry depend neither on the orientation of the axis of symmetry, nor on the contrast polarity of the physical inducers. It is concluded that bilateral symmetry, irrespective of orientation, significantly contributes to the, largely sign-invariant, visual mechanisms of figure-ground segregation that determine the salience of figure-ground in perceptually ambiguous configurations.
Highlights
The Gestalt psychologists Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Metzger [1,2] formulated and discussed “laws of perception” to predict how perceptual grouping operates under specific conditions of visual configuration
Symmetry has been discussed in terms of a major grouping principle or law of good Gestalt since Wertheimer and Metzger [1,2], the specific effects symmetry may produce on feature grouping, figure-ground segregation, visual discrimination, or time to respond to visual configurations have become subject to systematic quantitative investigation in perceptual science only recently
In the case of visual perception, symmetry may be conceived as a geometric property that yields configurational simplicity and, represents an ecological advantage for information processing [30]
Summary
The Gestalt psychologists Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Metzger [1,2] formulated and discussed “laws of perception” to predict how perceptual grouping operates under specific conditions of visual configuration. Their important work was translated into the English language in 2012 and 2009 respectively by Lothar Spillmann and colleagues [1,2], making this important early conceptual work available to a broader audience. The Gestalt laws are used to express principles or conditions of visual configuration to explain why we see the world as we do.
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