The way people perceive different aspects of life play a large part in each of us. “Perception is defined as the recognition, organization, and interpretation of information from our sensory experiences” (Wede, Josh). Scientifically speaking, when a person sees, hears, touches, or tastes something, receptors in our body take the energy the action created into what we call “action potentials” in our body and send that energy to the brain. When this process is completed it is called “perceptual experience,” according to researchers. Part of the brain’s job in analyzing perception is to figure out which parts of the environment belong together and which belong apart. A widely used approach to this follows Gestalts Laws of Organization. There are 6 different grouping principles: proximity, similarity, good continuation, connectedness, common fate, and pragnanz.
One of the principles of Gestalt is the law of similarity. This law states that “we group things together that are similar to each other in some characteristic,” including such things as shape or color (Wede). Summer I have noticed that I make many groups based off of similarity. Over the summer I work as a coach at a sports place for three to nine year olds. I teach various sports such as baseball, soccer, basketball, etc. Whenever I am making teams of children, I always group them based off of the colored shirt they are wearing. It is not planned that they would wear a certain color, but with so many kids present it is just easiest to split them up by the colored shirt they are wearing so that there are completely random and fair teams. This is something I do almost instinctually at this point and do not even think about twice.
The simple task of splitting up children based on their shirt color is just one of the functions that the brain effortlessly takes part in. My perception of teams with these children comes from their shirt color in order to easily make teams. I find it so interesting that our brain can just group similar objects together without us even realizing. Even though these children are all wearing similar colored shirts, there are still other features to them we do not even think about in a situation like this. We could just as easily first think to separate the children by their hair color. I typically have a wide range of children with either blonde or dark hair, but that is never the first thing I think of.
Work Cited:
Wede, Josh. “Lesson 3: Perception.” N.p., 2015. Web. 31 May 2015.
Gestalts Principles really are seen a lot in our every day lives! This is such a simple task that you do every day and before this class I’m sure you did not even know it was one of the most famous principles for grouping out there. In addition to grouping your campers into groups based on similarity, I am sure that you also group them based on proximity sometimes. This law states that we group things together that are close to each other (Wede, Josh). For instance, if they are all sitting down for lunch on two different picnic tables and you and your co-counselors are trying to figure out teams for your game of soccer after lunch, then an idea that would probably be brought up might be to group them based on tables. I went to camp for years as a kid and I specifically remember my counselors telling us table one is one team and table two is another. This makes it easy for the kids and the counselors and is less confusing. By choosing teams this way, one can see Gestalt’s law of proximity. I’m sure you must also use another one of Gestalt’s law’s without even noticing it. The law of connectedness can be used at a camp a lot as well. Often times in a children’s camp, kids are asked to hold hands while walking. Maybe once you walked to the field where they are going to play, the counselor tells them that the partner that they are holding hands with is now there partner for the game as well. This situation also reflects Gestalt’s law of connectedness. Gestalt’s laws of grouping are seen in our everyday lives and I am not surprised that you experienced it in yours.