The law of continuity is a Gestalt psychology principle holding that visual elements arranged along a continuous line or smooth curve are perceptually grouped together and integrated into a single object, even where that object is partly interrupted or overlapped by something else. The effect means that when one shape passes behind another, a viewer perceives the partly hidden shape as a single uninterrupted whole continuing behind the obstruction, rather than as two separate fragments coincidentally aligned on either side of it.
Facts
Core ClaimWertheimer 1923 account holds that where contours intersect, the mind resolves the arrangement into the smoothest continuous path through the intersection rather than an arbitrary one, an effect he called the Factor of the Good Curve. 1 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Sources
1. Laws of Organization in Perceptual Forms (Wertheimer, 1923)
Max Wertheimer, Classics in the History of Psychology (York University), 1923section on Fig. 23 and the good-curve demonstrations
In Fig. 23, for example, it is not three self-enclosed areas but rather The Factor of the "Good Curve" which predominates.
publication note beneath the Max Wertheimer (1923) title heading
First published as Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt II, in Psycologische Forschung, 4, 301-350.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
The law of continuity is a heuristic principle introduced by Gottfried Leibniz based on earlier work by Nicholas of Cusa and Johannes Kepler.
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