barebones communication

Hi there

I am sure that this picture is pretty easy to decompose in terms of gestalt factors. Proximity and similarity could be some of the factors used for such a decomposition.

But, are there other striking features in this image that you would like to point to? That makes you want to take a closer look?

Be my guest :-) 

More on barebones notebook.   

It is late Saturday the last weekend of January 2008.

And I really think that Wertheimer would have loved this one too. I am sure Barthes would.

Reasons why? You tell me . Go here. 

BTW, this is shot outside Hotel Churchill in Dover, UK, April 2007. There is a tiny beach there.

It is really good that I have all these pictures, right . Since they all speak more than a thousands words.

Each.

Well I enjoy it, and if you too participate in the initial stages of the barebones community building, you will as well .

So here is another notebook brief for you. The white bus in Berlin. Shot this August.

I could ask you how this fit will a couple of gestalt factors, but that would be too easy. Obviously both proximity and similarity are at work here, as the two most dominant factors. Nearness and similarity of objects have me perceive this picture as a picture of two groups of people (not six individuals): one group upstairs and another group downstairs.

Let’s however make this notebook brief a bit more interesting by pointing to two levels of closure potent in the image. Do you remember, that I talked about a physical closure and a mental closure in the post on gestalt closure.

Closure is, in a quick word, the human capacity to perceive a bit more than you actually get. The whole is more than the sum of its physically given parts.  This is the gestalt basic.

Now, the picture that you find in this post is a pretty complete one. There are no blank spots or areas. Things that you need to fill in to comprehend them. You should be able to recognize, at first glance, what the picture is all about.

On the other hand, there are still things “missing” in the picture. Let me point to a few:  you don’t see the bodies of the talking heads on the bus, and you don’t see the whole bus. Yet, that is what you perceive; people with intact bodies, and a bus that will certainly drive away if the driver tends to it.  Your are not in doubt about these things.

So for reason that will be clear in future posts, I will introduce two additional layers within the closure concept. These are layers 2 and 3 below.

1) Closure, as the capacity to mentally close figures where visual information is actually lacking (as in the example with the dog in the blog post on closure). This is the gestalt original. 

Then, let me add some layers to this: 

2) Closure, as the capacity to mentally close figures where the visual information is actually hidden or cropped away (as the bodies of the talking heads or the parts of the bus that are not actually there).

3) Closure, as the capacity to mentally elaborate on the context of the actual visual stimuli. You clearly have a notion of what these people are doing on that bus, don’t you? And you have an idea of how they are going to spend the next hours, haven’t you? You even may have an idea of why these guys are in Berlin in the first place? How will you close this open context and continue the story?

It does not really matter how you close it. The important thing is that you have the ability to close it. Any way you want . Remember the last pitstop. I do .

So much for the nostalgische rundfahrt, apart from that tiny, but important thing, that what I just did was to link a gestalt factor to that popular idea of telling a story, as a communication means.  That passport to success, would you believe it? I think they call it storytelling, right? .

I also introduced another gestalt factor: the factor of experience or habit. 

More on this later, so stay tuned to a barebones blog near you.

And, sorry for taking all the notes myself.  I will make up for it .

Both gestalt proximity, and gestalt similarity works well here.

I would suggest, that this image would probably be perceived as two groups of two people each. Not as four separate people in a picture.

What other gestalt “tricks” have been engaged here? Can you figure that out? If any? I am sure you have an answer.

Good luck with it . 

More on barebones notebook. 

Gosh, I must have been preparing for the barebones for many years already .

Since I have all these pictures that seem to fit the theme.

I just loaded a post on gestalt direction, and while writing I had this picture in my mind all the time. And I left it for you, even if it would have been much easier for me to comment on, than the two pictures I included in the post.

So, now it is your turn. Take a crack at it, and tell yourself how this picture illustrates The Factor of Direction.  Don’t post a comment for everybody to read unless your are absolutely sure that you want to mingle with the rest of the world. Must easier to stay Web 1.0 . Right?

One photograph coming up. Max Wertheimer would have loved it .

More on barebones notebook. 

Good luck with it . 

Time for another step into the interesting world of gestalt factors.

This is the fourth factor we are dealing with: The Factor of Direction.

Wertheimer says: ” As Figs. (…) also show we are dealing now with a new principle which we may call The Factor of Direction”.

The figures, that he is referring to are simple figures consisting of a straight line or curve (A & C) hit by one, or more, shorter lines or curves e.g. line/curve B. 

 Visual Figures: Main and secondary lines.

The two figures above are similar to some of the simplest figures Wertheimer used in his experiments, hereby indicated that some figures can be more complicated than the ones shown. However they all illustrate the same idea about directionality.

The main line structure is along the longer line A/C. He talks about “good continuation”, “inner coherence” and suggests that some linear structures show good gestalt simply “by its own inner necessity”. 

The shorter lines, B, in both cases above will tend to have secondary role in perceiving visual figures as these.

Wertheimer talks about the unequivocally of such patterns. They are unambiguous, and have a clear direction that is based on what is perceived as the main line structure of a figure.

This is not only the case when straight lines are involves, but it is also valid in curved lines when the longer curves is perceives more dominant than shorter, tangential curves. It seems to be a general phenomenon at work here, thus a gestalt factor. 

When talking about more complex units than those Wertheimer points to, like for instance photographs or pictures, it seems relevant to talk about perceived lines and perceived direction of a second level. Let’s call this second level directions for impressions. So, let me illustrate this with some pictures.

 Second Level Direction: Impression of coherency.

The coherent line in this image is, in my opinion, the diagonal line from the left hand low corner - the beach line. The horizontal line, which is the other main line in the image, cannot visually compete with the strength of the beach line. The placement of the woman in the continuation of the beach line gives a relaxed, coherent impression. Her facing the horizontal line helps lock up the line structures in the image.

 Second Level Direction: Impression of collision.

The main line in this image is perceived to be the line going vertically from the bottom of the picture to the other end of the tunnel, where the crowd of people are gathered - the tunnel line. The perceived horizontal line, where the three people move, is the secondary line - the crossing line. The inner coherence will be constituted along the tunnel line. As the crossing line is quite strong in thus picture it creates a kind a tension, a conflict in the image. However, as in the former picture, it helps to lock up the picture, that two of the crossing people face the main line and thereby link into that.

The main point with The Factor of Direction is that certain line structures seems to lend themselves to some sort of unambiguity, that ease the perception of them.

Adding more lines, and thereby introducing a more complex visual picture, can stress that ease of perception. Using Wertheimer’s visual figures it is pretty easy to agree on this, but these simple figures rarely exist in our life-world. As seen in the two photographs above, the visual deconstruction of real-life situation will be much more complex and demanding.

Real-life communication, of course, is in terms of complexity closer to the two photographs than to Wertheimer’s clinical experiments. And more demanding. Nothing to do about that, I am afraid .

How to use: 

As indicated in the pictures above, you can use the factor of direction in two ways: use it coherently and built on the good continuation, or skip the good continuation to set things, objects, logos, whatever, apart. 

Doing the first thing, you can expect perceptions that are less troublesum for the reader/viewer, than if you go for the second. Dependent on what your aim, or for that matter, what your target or target group is, you will pick your choise.

Does it work for other areas of communication than mere visuals?  Well, you consider e.g. storytelling where you could have one major theme, and more minor themes. Or music? And other areas?

I would say yes, definitely.

Max Wertheimer: ”Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms” in A Sourcebook of Gestalt Psychology, prepared by Willis D. Ellis,  Routledge & Kegan Paul, Great Britain 1974, page 81 ff. (Library Thing). 

“It has long seemed obvious - and is, in fact, the characteristic tone of European science - that “science” means breaking up complexes into their component elements. Isolate the elements, discover their laws, then reassemble them, and the problem is solved. All wholes are reduced to pieces and piecewise relations between pieces.

The fundamental “formula” of the Gestalt theory might be expressed in this way: There are wholes, the behaviour of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes. 

With a formula such as this, one might close, for Gestalt theory is neither more nor less than this”.

Max Wertheimer: ”General Problems, Selection 1, Gestalt Theory” in A Sourcebook of Gestalt Psychology, prepared by Willis D. Ellis,  Routledge & Kegan Paul, Great Britain 1974, page 2. (Library Thing).

More on barebones pitstops. 

Those of you that have already investigated gestalt psychology will know that the notion Prägnanz is important. 

Why then have I not used it?. Simply because it is a bit difficult to know what the word means within the gestalt psychology tradition. Some English translators say that the word cannot be translated into English. Others state, that the English word for it is pregnant. 

Well, none of them are wholly wrong. 

Even within the German language there seems to be some problems with this word. The big “Etymologisches Wörterbuch“ by Friedrich Kluge at Walter de Gruyter & Co, 1975 Edition, does not mention it. However, it mentions the adjective prägnant, which in their definition means “kurz, doch vielsagend”. And they add: ”  17. Jh. frz. prégnant zu lat. preagnans “schwanger”.

To add to the confusion is not unusual to find some gestalt theorists stating that there is a factor or a law of prägnanz, just as we e.g have a factor of proximity, a factor of similarity and factor of closure.  

Not so in this context.

I would rather see prägnant used about the general capacity, that makes the gestalt factors, in their various forms, possible. And as some gestaltists would say; this a capacity in the object, not in the subject.

I will use the word as an alias for outstanding, distinct, explicit, and with that little trick I have moved from and urge for a descriptive definition to that of a normative definition, which makes the world much easier for all of us.

I just wanted to bare the bones in this, somewhat, confusing matter.

Maybe this was not very kurz, but hopefully it was vielsagend enough. If not, I must try again .