Gestalt

So, what do you see in the pointless photo? A backyard fish pond?

I see a self-portrait. It is, after all, my shadow.

Perception is an interesting thing to me. Obviously not just to me, of course. Why would we have things like gestalt theory if other people out there weren't spending a whole lot more time than I can be bothered with trying to figure out exactly how perception works?

I like the idea of gestalt. The whole should be more than the sum of its parts, don't you think? I don't have a whole lot to say about gestalt just now (we can't break the blog rule of late posting means little said), but I can't imagine that my two fans are terribly surprised that I should be interested in something that involves, in part, pattern recognition.

For those new to the program, I'll say that I'm a bit of a freak for patterns.

I did want to leave you with a quick example of how different people can come to the same conclusion in totally different ways (perceptionally speaking. And yes, perceptionally is too a word. At least it is today). Say someone brings in a plant to the nature centre and wants it identified.

Someone brings in a plant to the nature centre and wants it identified.

Come on. You know you were thinking it. And shut up if you were.

Wheat and I would likely both be able to identify the plant. If you asked Wheat later how he did it, he'd tell you that the flower had x number of petals, y number of divisions in the leaf, that the branching pattern was alternate, or any number of other perfectly good physical ID characteristics.

I'd give you slightly confused stare, say "well, that's what it looked like," and proceed to grab a field guide from one of the bookshelves so that we could both look up the plant together.

I know the plant, but I couldn't begin to explain why. The whole means more (in my brain's style of recognition) than the sum of the parts. Kind of cool.

But not so good if you're trying to teach someone how to identify plants.




If you are, you might want to ask Wheat for pointers.

If I haven't already stabbed him in the shins, that is. In that case he'd probably be a little too distracted to care about your frigging plant.






And yes, I had to bring up shin stabbing again. I can't create a label like Stabbing Wheat in the shins and only use it one time. What would be the fun in that?

Ok, back to work for me (shin stabbing or no shin stabbing). Have a good long weekend, for those of you who are already on the long weekend. I have to wait a couple of days for mine.