Psychology And Visual Cues In Everyday Life

The principles of grouping are a set of concepts for psychology, describing the observations that us humans make about things we find in nature, and how we interpret all the incoming information to our eyes. There are a variety of principles of grouping found within psychology such as proximity, closure, similarity, and more. Monocular Cues are another function for our eyes, dealing with relative size, perspective, lighting and shadow, and other varied roles.

The principle of grouping seen in the photo below is the Closure principle. The closure principle is defined as the mind’s ability to form figures, when an object is missing a side or is outlined and not complete, the eye tends to complete the shape, without it being 100% complete. Within the first and second photo, you can see the lamps and their projected lights on the whiteboard. The top of the light outlines seems to show a rectangle shape, even though there is no rectangle there. Once invisible lines that your mind has formed, it is difficult to undo the perception of them. This process of closure is possible because our mind often tries to input information that isn’t there to complete the figure that is already recognizable to us. Looking deeper into the photos below, you can see that there isn’t only a grouping principle, but some monocular cues that correspond with the light are also in this picture.

Monocular Cues are defined as depth cues that can be seen with one eye. There are many different monocular cues that our eyes tend to seek out. Relative Size is defined as smaller objects appear as farther away than they are. In the second picture, the light is seen as having a similar length to the length of the whiteboard horizontally. This is an example of relative size because the light is extended out from the whiteboard. The light also projects a larger visual angle from this view, appearing closer. This process is possible because our eyes can notice the difference between the two objects but also give us details about the relative depth of the two objects.

Another monocular cue is Lighting and Shadow, which is defined as the way light reflects an object and how it is displayed to our human eyes. In the third photo, you can see the shadow of the light display and its shadow. The shadow is seen as reflecting a right triangle when there isn’t a right triangle present. There isn’t a triangle, but the shape of a triangle can be made out due to the closure principle.

Our mind often makes connections that are not actually there, filling in the moon when only a crescent is showing, or drawing parallel lines in our mind. The mind works in mysterious ways as the Closure principle helps use complete incomplete shapes, while some monocular cues such as relative size helps us discern the size of objects close to each other. Lighting and Shadow determines shapes and the position of objects in space. Overall, our eyes have a special set of tools that allows us to see incredible things.