the idea that our mind organizes sensory information into meaningful wholes or patterns, emphasizing the importance of the whole rather than its individual parts
Related terms
Figure-ground principle: our mind automatically separates an object from its background, allowing us to perceive it as distinct
Closure: our tendency to mentally fill in missing parts of an incomplete image or pattern
Proximity: the perceptual tendency to group objects that are close together as belonging to the same unit or pattern
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