What is the Meaning of Shape? - Gestalt Theory

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Pinna, What is the Meaning of Shape?
These results demonstrate that the accentuation of one shape property against
the other can induce different kinds of dimensional, direction and even motion
effects, which suggest a theory of shape, considered like an overall holder
containing many shape attributes that compete or cooperate and whose strength
can be changed or accentuated in many ways.
Other effects induced by the accentuation and by its vectorial properties are the
tilt and straighten up effects of Fig. 14. The dot seems to tilt further the shape
by pulling the top left-hand corner of the parallelogram in Fig. 14-left and to
push the whole figure in the right-vertical direction, thus, straightening up the
parallelogram in Fig. 14-right.
Fig. 14 Tilt and straighten up effects
Another kind of accentuation is induced by the missing parts or cuts of sides
and angles shown in Fig. 15, thus inducing the switch from the diamond to the
rotated square shape both in the 2D and 3D conditions. It is worthwhile noticing
that the 3D appearance of the cube with the missing corner is weaker than the
one of the cube with the cut side (see also Fig. 16). This is likely due to the
directional symmetry induced by the cut, which favors the vertical organization
of lines that camouflages the whole 3D perception.
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