“The whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts.” This phrase basically sums up the fundamentals of Gestalt psychology: a theory in which the nature of our perceptions is studied and analyzed. This Berlin school of thought looks at how the brain strives to solve and create unity in what it views.
This is true for both 2-D and 3-D images. Pulling from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, he describes how two circles and a line enclosed in an oval is understood to be a face. This mental schema of a simple face allows the image to be less photographic and more universal. The brain is “connecting the dots” to see something that it recognizes. This also can occur with a simple image of three lines, not touching, but in the shape of a triangle. We see a triangle because the mind automatically closes in the gaps and finds unity in the form of a triangle in the three lines. This shows that the mind is always seeking out to see something it knows.
This theory can also apply to tangible pieces. For example, take IDEO’s newly designed shopping cart. Taken out of their context and apart from the final product, the pieces used to assemble the cart would just look like a plethora of shiny pipes some wheels and hooks and baskets--nothing like the interwoven, grill shaped panels we conjure in our minds when thinking of the classic shopping cart. However, when put together, the seemingly disconnected products form a new sleek cart that supposedly will solve some of the problems that the classic cart causes: theft, safety, shopping behavior, check-out speed, etc... Applying Gestalt psychology to this concept, the mind values the end product considering its function-ability and helpfulness.
(Thank you for the photograph courtesy of http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_20/art04_20/0420pe_ideo7.jpg (in reference to IDEO’s sleek new shopping cart).)
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