Perception of Objects and Forms

Perception of Objects – Do we perceive objects in a viewer-centered or in an object-centered way? Whenever we look at any object in the space around us, do we perceive it in relation to us rather than its actual structure, or do we perceive it in a more objective way that is free how it appears to us right this moment? Then, look at Gestalt principles for perception, which clarify why we perceive some objects as in groups but others as not so grouped. Finally, we will consider the question of how we perceive patterns, for example faces.

There are two ways to perceive the objects:

• In a viewer centered.
• In an object-centered.

Viewer-Centered Representation

One position is that the individual stores then way the object looks to him or her. Thus, what matters is the form of the object to the, not the actual structure of the object. The shape of the object fluctuations, depending on the angle from which we look at it. A number of views of the object are stored, and when we try to recognize an object, we have to rotate that object in our mind until it fits one of the stored images.

Object Centered

Second position is that the individual stores a representation of the object, autonomous of its appearance to the viewer. In this situation, the shape of the object will stay stable across different orientations.

This solidity can be achieved by means of creating the major and minor axes of the object, which then serve as a basis for defining further properties of the object. Both of the positions can account for how the author represents a given object and its parts. The main difference is in whether he represents the object and its parts in relation to him as viewer-centered or in relation to the entirety of the object itself, independent of his own position as object centered.

• Landmark-Centered
  in this representation, information is categorized by its relation to a well-known or prominent Imagine visiting a new city. Each day you leave your hotel and go on short trips. It is easy to imagine that you would represent the area you explore in relation to your hotel.
• The Perception of Groups Gestalt Laws
  Perception supports us to make sense of the confusing stimuli that we perceive in the world. One way to take order and consistency into our perception is our ability to group
  similar things. This way, we can decrease the number of things that need to be processed. We can also decide better which things belong together or to the same object. Simply, we form objects in a visual array into coherent groups.
• The Figure-Ground Effect

According to this effect actual figure is get faded by the background which is perceived. Two gestalt images (a, b) are shown below:

Gestalt Principles of Visual Perception

Read More About Approaches of perception