Perception Flashcards
Color
Color is used in design to attract attention, group elements, indicate meaning, and enhance aesthetics.
• analogous: Colors adjacent on the color wheel.
• complementary: Opposing colors.
• triadic or quadratic: Colors at the corners of a symmetrical polygon.
• saturation: Saturated colors are the purest hues.
Closure
A tendency to perceive a set of individual elements as a single, recognizable pattern, rather than multiple, individual elements.
Common Fate
Elements that move in the same direction are perceived to be more related than elements that move in different directions.
Constancy
The tendency to perceive objects as unchang- ing, despite changes in sensory input.
Contour Bias
A tendency to favor objects with contours over objects with sharp angles or points.
• Angular objects are more effective at attracting attention and engaging thought; contoured objects are more effective at making a positive impression.
Figure-Ground Relationship
Elements are perceived as either figures (objects of focus) or ground (everything else).
the figure tends to: Have a definite shape, is usually in front of the ground, seems closer, is most often below the hori- zon line, and is in the design’s lower regions.
Good Continuation
Elements arranged in a straight line or a smooth curve are perceived as a group, and are interpreted as being more related than elements not on the line or curve.
Highlighting
A technique for bringing attention to an area of text or image.
• techniques: Bold, italics, underlining, typeface, color, inversing, blinking.
Horror Vacui
A tendency to favor filling blank spaces
with objects and elements over leaving spaces blank or empty.
• Regarding shop window displays: as horror vacui increases, perceived value decreases.
Law of Prägnanz
A tendency to interpret ambiguous images as simple and complete, versus complex and incomplete.
Proximity
Elements that are close together are perceived to be more related than elements that are farther apart.
Similarity
Elements that are similar are perceived
to be more related than elements that are dissimilar.
• Similarity of color is the strongest grouping effect, followed by size, then shape.
Three-Dimensional Projection
A tendency to see objects and patterns as three-dimensional when certain visual cues are present.
• seven depth cues: Interposition, size, elevation, linear perspective, texture gradient, shading, atmospheric perspective.
Top-Down Lighting Bias
A tendency to interpret shaded or dark areas of an object as shadows resulting from a light source above the object.
• We are biased to interpret objects as being lit from a single light source from above.
• Objects that are light at the top and dark at the bottom are interpreted as convex.
• Objects that are dark at the top and light at the bottom are interpreted as concave.
• The apparent depth increases as the contrast increases.
• Objects lit from the top-left are preferred.
Uniform Connectedness
Elements that are connected by uniform visual properties, such as color, are perceived to be more related than elements that are not connected.
• two basic strategies: Common regions and connecting lines.
• Uniform connectedness will generally overpower all the other Gestalt principles.
