Principles of grouping

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The principles of grouping (or Gestalt laws of grouping) are a set of principles in psychology, first proposed by Gestalt psychologists to account for the observation that humans naturally perceive objects as organized patterns and objects, a principle known as Prägnanz. Gestalt psychologists argued that these principles exist because the mind has an innate disposition to perceive patterns in the stimulus based on certain rules. These principles are organized into five categories: Proximity, Similarity, Continuity, Closure, and Connectedness.^[1][2][3][4]

Irvin Rock and Steve Palmer, who are acknowledged as having built upon the work of Max Wertheimer and others and to have identified additional grouping principles,^[5] note that Wertheimer's laws have come to be called the "Gestalt laws of grouping" but state that "perhaps a more appropriate description" is "principles of grouping."^[6][7] Rock and Palmer helped to further Wertheimer's research to explain human perception of groups of objects and how whole objects are formed from parts which are perceived.