Gestalt Principles Of Proximity Research Articles

Clustering of Road Traffic Accidents as a Gestalt Problem

This paper introduces and illustrates an approach to automatically detecting and selecting “critical” road segments, intended for application in circumstances of limited human or technical resources for traffic monitoring and management. The reported study makes novel contributions at three levels. At the specification level, it conceptualizes “critical segments” as road segments of spatially prolonged and high traffic accident risk. At the methodological level, it proposes a two-stage approach to traffic accident clustering and selection. The first stage is devoted to spatial clustering of traffic accidents. The second stage is devoted to selection of clusters that are dominant in terms of number of accidents. At the implementation level, the paper reports on a prototype system and illustrates its functionality using publicly available real-life data. The presented approach is psychologically inspired to the extent that it introduces a clustering criterion based on the Gestalt principle of proximity. Thus, the proposed algorithm is not density-based, as are most other state-of-the-art clustering algorithms applied in the context of traffic accident analysis, but still keeps their main advantages: it allows for clusters of arbitrary shapes, does not require an a priori given number of clusters, and excludes “noisy” observations.

What should a corporate website look like? The influence of Gestalt principles and visualisation in website design on the degree of acceptance and recommendation

Internet users decide within seconds, whether to elaborate on a website, or to go on to a new page. This calls for investigation of the factors influencing this decision. In two studies, we presented websites for 3 s and analysed the effect implementation of Gestalt principles (GPs) and visualisation of an interaction partner has on acceptance, recommendation of the site by the user, and social presence. Study 1 implemented a 3 (Gestalt principle of proximity: no, medium and strong implementation) × 3 (Gestalt principle of a common region: no, medium and strong implementation) – design and found more acceptance and recommendation with more GPs used. Study 2, using a 2 (GPs: implemented and not implemented) × 3 (visualisation: no, drawing and photograph) – design, showed more social presence with more realistic visualisation and more recommendation with higher social presence. Thus, GPs and realistic visualisation should be implemented in web design to intensify interaction with the user.

To Group or n o t t o g r o u p

Eight experiments are reported that examine the contextual factors that influence the magnitude of color-word interference in the Stroop task. In Part 1 of the paper (Experiments 1-4) we varied letter-letter grouping using Gestalt principles of proximity and similarity. In Part 2 of the paper (Experiments 5-8) we varied word-color grouping using the Gestalt principles of similarity and common fate. The magnitude of the Stroop effect was strongly influenced by changes in both letter-letter grouping in the color-word and word-color grouping. Overall, the results suggest two ways in which perceptual organization influences the magnitude of Stroop color-word interference and more generally, that there are systematic principles that govern the impact of visually presented words across a variety of laboratory contexts and the real world.

Gestalt perception and the decline of global precedence in older subjects

Our visual world is hierarchically organized. Hierarchical processing is frequently investigated using Navon figures (large letters made up of smaller ones). In young adults, many studies reported faster reaction times (RT) to target letters presented at the global level [i.e., global precedence (GP)]. Furthermore, an age-related decline of this GP has been reported. We tested whether deficits in perceptual grouping via Gestalt laws (Gestalt principles of Proximity and Continuity) might contribute to this decline. In a directed attention task with valid and invalid cues, 20 young (mean age 22) and 20 older (mean age 57) male subjects had to indicate whether a target letter appeared at the global or local level of a Navon figure. The number of local letters forming the global figure was modulated in 5 steps. As expected, during valid trials, young adults showed a GP that linearly increased with increasing numbers of local letters (i.e., GP enhancement). This suggests that GP is related to perceptual grouping via Gestalt laws. By contrast, the group of older subjects demonstrated no precedence effect in RT and a non-significant trend toward GP in error rates (ER). No GP enhancement with an increasing number of local elements was observed. Exploratory analysis revealed that individual insensitivity to the modulation of matrix density, as revealed by a lack of global RT acceleration, was restricted to subjects that showed an overall local precedence (LP). Because older subjects tended to more frequently display an insensitivity to matrix modulation and an LP, we conclude that deficient Gestalt detection as indicated by non-enhanced global RT might contribute to the RT-related decline of GP with age.

Memory-Based Models of Melodic Analysis: Challenging the Gestalt Principles

We argue for a memory-based approach to music analysis which works with concrete musical experiences rather than with rules or principles. New pieces of music are analyzed by combining fragments from structures of previously encountered pieces. The occurrence-frequencies of the fragments are used to determine the preferred analysis of a piece. We test some instances of this approach against a set of 1,000 manually annotated folksongs from the Essen Folksong Collection, yielding up to 85.9% phrase accuracy. A qualitative analysis of our results indicates that there are grouping phenomena that challenge the commonly accepted Gestalt principles of proximity, similarity and parallelism. These grouping phenomena can neither be explained by other musical factors, such as meter and harmony. We argue that music perception may be much more memory-based than previously assumed.

Representation of the Centre of a Perceptual Group in Neglect: A Case Study

Abstract We attempted to study how patients with visual neglect represent the centre of a perceptual group determined by the Gestalt principles of proximity and/or similarity. Patient LJ, with lesions of the right frontal, temporal and parietal regions, was instructed to mark the centre of a horizontal array of triangles or arrows. In Experiment 1, we held the position of the array constant on the page but In some conditions plus signs were added to the right or left of the array. Adding plus signs to the right increased neglect in bisection, indicating effects due to shifting the centre of a group based on the proximity of elements. However, this effect of additional right-side Items could be overcome by moving the whole array into the patient's right hemifield. The data suggest that visual neglect can be affected by the position of a stimulus relative to a proximity-based group, but this effect can be overridden by the effect of stimulus position in body space. The results support the proposal that the effects of object-coding Interact with those due to the hemispace of presentation, to influence the magnitude of visual neglect.

Representation of the centre of a perceptual group in neglect: A case study

We attempted to study how patients with visual neglect represent the centre of a perceptual group determined by the Gestalt principles of proximity and/or similarity. Patient LJ, with lesions of the right frontal, temporal and parietal regions, was instructed to mark the centre of a horizontal array of triangles or arrows. In Experiment 1, we held the position of the array constant on the page but In some conditions plus signs were added to the right or left of the array. Adding plus signs to the right increased neglect in bisection, indicating effects due to shifting the centre of a group based on the proximity of elements. However, this effect of additional right-side Items could be overcome by moving the whole array into the patient's right hemifield. The data suggest that visual neglect can be affected by the position of a stimulus relative to a proximity-based group, but this effect can be overridden by the effect of stimulus position in body space. The results support the proposal that the effects of object-coding Interact with those due to the hemispace of presentation, to influence the magnitude of visual neglect.

Gestalt Theory and Instructional Design

Research on the visual presentation of instructions (and other texts) tends to be repetitious, unsystematic, and overly complex. A simpler yet rich approach to analyzing the visual dimension of instructions is Gestalt theory. Gestalt principles of proximity, closure, symmetry, figure-ground segregation, good continuation, and similarity provide a powerful approach to making instructions more inviting and consistent, as well as easier to access, follow, and understand. This article applies six Gestalt principles to a badly designed instruction to show what improvements result when Gestalt theory is considered in instructional design.

Color segregation and visual search.

Visual search of color-coded alphanumeric displays was investigated by reaction time methods. The task was to indicate the alphanumeric class of a target item, singled out by appearing in a designated color which varied across trials. Mean reaction time increased with both the number of colors and the number of items in the displays. When same-colored noise items appeared in spatial proximity (organized displays), mean reaction time was a linear function of the number of colors for each level of number of items, and effects of the two factors were additive. For displays constructed by random assignment of colors to individual noise items (scrambled displays), temporal effects of the same factors showed strong interaction. Search times for scrambled displays were predictable from search times for organized displays by use of subjective estimates of the number of phenomenally separate groups of displayed items. The results suggest that visual search for items in the target color consisted in sequentially examining groups of same-colored items, unitized in accordance with Gestalt principles of proximity and similarity, until a unit in the target color was found.

Effect of presentation time and Gestalt principles of proximity, similarity, and closure on perceptual accuracy.

The present study investigated Gestalt principles of proximity, similarity and closure. 32 subjects reproduced distances between dots and lines. Two stimulus exposure times were used. Time was significant for proximity, similarity, and closure. Type of distance estimated was significant for proximity and closure and the interaction of time and type of distance was significant for similarity. Most accurate estimations were consistently found for fast exposure times, and internal distances were estimated more accurately than external distances.

Form Perception in Stumptail Macaques Following Posterior Parietal and Lateral Frontal Lesions

Monkeys with bilateral posterior parietal and lateral frontal ablations were compared with normal animals on a series of four tests for their ability to relate elements of a visual pattern on the basis of the Gestalt principle of proximity. The operated animals showed no clear impairment on these tests of perceptual grouping. The three groups of monkeys were then trained to discriminate two faces and tested for generalisation to different views of the same faces. The pariental-operated monkeys showed less generalisation than the other animals to lateral mirror-images of the training stimuli, but more generalisation to inverted mirror-images. It is concluded that any deficit in "gestalt" perception following such lesions must be at a relatively high level.

Anomalous transfer effects after shape discrimination training in the rat

Krechevsky has observed an anomalous transfer effect in rats which he explained by the Gestalt principle of proximity. The effect has been referred to by others more or less as a curiosity, but has not generated further research until now. The effect was replicated under tighter and more extensive conditions, and was found to apply to both positive and negative training shapes. The importance of these findings for behavioral analysis of shape and contour coding in the mammalian visual system is discussed.