and colours. However, we perceive these elements as organised wholes or complete objects. For example, we see a bicycle as a complete object, not as a collection of different parts (e.g., saddle, wheel, handle). The process of organising visual field into meaningful wholes is known as form perception .
You may wonder how different parts of an objects are organised into a meaningful whole. You may also ask if there are certain factors that facilitate or inhibit this process of organisation. Several scholars have tried to answer such questions, but the most widely accepted answer has been given by a group of researchers, called Gestalt psychologists . Prominent among them are Köhler, Koffka, and Wertheimer.
Gestalt means a regular figure or a form. According to Gestalt psychologists, we perceive different stimuli not as discrete elements, but as an organised “whole” that carries a definite form. They believe that the form of an object lies in its whole, which is different from the sum of their parts. For example, a flower pot with a bunch of flowers is a whole.
If the flowers are removed, the flower pot still remains a whole. It is the configuration of the flower pot that has changed. Flower pot with flowers is one configuration; without flowers it is another configuration. The Gestalt psychologists also indicate that our cerebral processes are always oriented towards the perception of a good figure or pragnanz .
That is the reason why we perceive everything in an organised form. The most primitive organisation takes place in the form of figure-ground segregation . When we look at a surface, certain aspects of the surface clearly stand out as separate entities, whereas others do not. For example, when we see words on a page, or a painting on a wall, or birds flying in the sky, the words, the painting, and the birds stand out from the background, and are perceived as figures, while the page, wall, and sky stay behind the figure and are perceived as background.
To test this experience, look at the Fig. . given below. You will see either