Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology is the view that the mind perceives organized wholes, not just separate parts.

Quote

“The whole is different from the sum of its parts.”

Why wholes over parts?

Local features alone don’t predict what we see. Grouping, figure-ground, and shape emerge from how parts relate, not from the parts themselves.

Important for perception: how we take a messy field of light and automatically group it into objects, figure and ground, meaningful shapes.