Gestalt Phenomena Through Systemic Functional Linguistics

Edelman (1992: 39):

 

Figure 4-2 Gestalt phenomena 

These figures are from Gætano Kanizsa's work and show how context-dependent perception is. … As Kanizsa put it, "seeing and thinking are clearly distinguishable activities. With these pieces we can imagine a cube (figure on the bottom left), but it is very difficult to see it." Notice, however, that the cube is completed (figure on the bottom right) behind the three opaque stripes and becomes perceptually present.

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistic theory, this demonstrates that visual perception is a construal of experience as perceptual meaning, which, in humans is correlated with the meaning of language — in this case: 'cube', 'stripe', 'triangle', 'circle', etc.