How much Gestalt does a flower have?

While out with my camera, I came across this happy little grouping:

How many Gestalt principles can you see? I can see:

• Similarity
• Grouping
• Ground-field
• Continuity

I'm sure there are more. What do you see? Post a comment to let me know...

Gestalt Theory in Visual Screen Design

Principle 1:

Using Gestalt Theory in the visual design will help your interface users understand and explore your online learning resource.

After reading the literature on Gestalt Theory, the researchers distilled its various elements into eleven main principles. These Gestalt principles reflect how the mind organises images and finds patterns among groups of images or within images in order to find meaning, understanding, or balance. Examples of these principles are 'Grouping', 'Similarity' and 'Flow'. When the researchers used all of their eleven identified principles in the re-design of an educational website, the feedback in terms of design satisfaction was positive. By providing an interface that is pleasing to a mind's perception, motivation to engage with the site is increased. When combined with sound pedagogical principles, the 'Gestalt Approach' is likely to lead to better learning outcomes.

Principle 2:

Not all Gestalt principles are as beneficial as others.

While the researchers' results indicated that all respondents identified the use of the eleven Gestalt principles to provide learning benefit, there were differences in the strength of the accolades. In particular, the principle of 'figure-ground' was less effective than others, such as 'continuity', or 'symmetry'. The research does not make it clear whether this is due to the effectiveness of the 'figure-ground' principle itself (in improving learning outcome); it is possible it wasn't able to be incorporated as strongly as other principles, and so its effect was weaker. Further research needs to be done on Gestalt principles in relation to visual design of web-based learning systems, both in regards to the principles themselves and how they can be applied to different fields and types of instruction.

Reference:
Chang, D., Dooley, L. & Tuovinen, J. E. (2002). Gestalt theory in visual screen design: a new look at an old subject. Paper presented at the 7th World Conference on Computers in Education.

The Effectiveness of Nonverbal Symbolic Signs and Metaphors in Advertisements

Principle 1:
Symbolic signs require motivation and a non-trivial amount of cognitive load to process.
Symbolic signs are signs that have little or no resemblance to their physical meaning; they are metaphor, and their meaning is highly dependant on their context. An example would be an image of a few flowers: depending on the context, it could be interpreted as meaning 'spring', or 'feminine', or 'a field'. Unlike iconic signs, which physically resemble their meaning (and which are automatically recognised), symbolic signs require an amount of cognitive processing to decipher. The amount of cognitive processing performed depends on the motivation to decipher the sign. Therefore, unlike iconic signs, symbolic signs are unlikely to be deciphered by all who encounter them.

Principle 2:
Only consumers with 'moderate' motivation to decipher a sign will be persuaded by it.
Advertisers use symbolic signs to attribute non-utilitarian meaning to a product in order to change the perception of that product in consumers' minds. Consumers with low motivation to interpret the sign will not engage in the 'process of abduction', whereupon an inference is made as a result of seeing the sign. On the other hand, those with high motivation will also engage in a 'counterargument' after first deciphering the sign. An example of a counterargument is 'I know that the flower on the plane means that it will be sunny at my destination, but I also know it is a ruse to get me to use that airline.' Because of the tendancy to counterargue, it is difficult to persuade someone with high motivation using a symbolic sign. As it is known that deciphering a symbolic sign takes less germane load than counterarguing, only those with a moderate level of interest are likely to be persuaded by a symbolic sign's inference, as they will not make the extra effort required to counterargue.

Reference:
DeRosia, E. D. (2008). The Effectiveness of nonverbal symbolic signs and metaphors in advertisements: An experimental enquiry. Psychology & Marketing, 25(3): 298-316.

Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia

Principle 1:
The 'Dual-Channel Assumption' can be successfully used to effectively manage cognitive load and improve learning outcomes in multimedia learning systems.
The 'dual-channel assumption' (Paivio, 1986; Baddeley, 1998) posits that there are two cognitive channels used when processing multimedia information: visual and verbal. Each channel extends from sensory memory through into working memory, and each has limited capacity (Chandler & Sweller, 1991; Sweller, 1999; Baddeley, 1998). Designing a multimedia system to share the load across these two channels (instead of all information passing through one channel) leads to an increase in germane cognitive load (Wittrock, 1989; Mayer, 1999, 2002) and a decrease in instrinsic and extraneous cognitive load, making better use of working memory capacity. Note that

Principle 2:
Narration is superior to written text when language is presented as part of the animation.
All animation necessarily is received and processed in working memory via the visual channel. While text is also received via the visual channel, narration is received via the verbal channel. When an animation is accompanied by text as an adjunct to the instruction, the visual channel can be overloaded easily. By using narration instead of text, the verbal channel is used instead, leaving the visual channel devoted entirely to the animation, reducing potential for intrinsic cognitive overload. (Mayer & Moreno, 2003)

References:
Baddeley, A. (1998). Human memory. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Chandler, P., & Sweller, J. (1991). Cognitive load theory and the format of instruction. Cognition and Instruction, 8, 293-332.
Mayer, R. E. (1999). The promise of educational psychology: Vol. 1, Learning in the content areas. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Mayer, R. E. (2002). The promise of educational psychology: Vol. 2, Teaching for meaningful learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 43-52.
Paivio, A. (1986). Mental representations: A dual coding approach. Oxford, england: Oxford University Press.
Sweller, J. (1999). Instructional design in the technical areas. Camberwell, Australia: ACER Press.
Wittrock, M. C. (1989). Generative processes of comprehension. Educational Psychologist, 24, 345-376.

Learner Control, Cognitive Load & Instructional Animation

Principle 1:
Total cognitive load is comprised of three elements: germane cognitive load, intrinsic cognitive load, and extraneous cognitive load. The goal of design is to reduce intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load, thereby increasing germane cognitive capacity.
Germane cognitive load is the amount of processing capacity performed by working memory on cognitive task, such as sorting or reorganising information - the more capacity engaged in this type of cognitive load the better. Intrinsic cognitive load is the amount of cognitive effort required to bring all parts of a problem together, and is increased as new material becomes more complex, or a person has to consider several parts of a problem at once. Extraneous cognitive load is the amount of processing resources a person has to devote to a problem as a result of elements outside of the problem itself, such as background music.

Principle 2:
When using animation as a teaching tool, learners should be given control over pacing to effect better learning outcomes.
Learner control of pacing can take the form of pause/play buttons, or breaking the animation into discrete units. When using pause/pay buttons, learners should be primed by directing them to pause the animation when they need to think about what has just been presented. Whether or not they do pause seems to be irrelevant; by using this kind of priming, the learner actively watches the material as opposed to just 'watching a movie'. Similarly, by breaking the anmation into segments, the implication is that each segment has a point that should be gleaned.

Reference:
Hasler, B., S., Kersten, B., and Sweller, J. (2007). Learner Control, Cognitive Load and Instructional Animation. Applied Cognitive Psychology. 21, p713-729.