HOW DO WE BREAK UP THE ENDLESS STREAM OF STIMULATION THAT HITS OUR SENSES IN ORDER TO PERCEIVE SHAPES AND FORMS?

1. Perceptual segregation
 

2. Form perception
 

a. Two viewpoints – early Empiricists versus Neo-nativists.

b. Evidence for innate perceptual mechanisms: newborn chickens, human infants, and feature detectors.

c. Gestalt theory and its laws of perceptual organization:
 

• Proximity
• Similarity
• Continuity (good continuation)
• Orientation
• Simplicity
• Closure and the “subjective contour” phenomenon
• Figure/ground

CONCLUSION: The human perceptual system creates order out of chaos.  It is an ACTIVE PROCESS.