100 Things: Every Designer Needs to Know About People

3. People Identify Objects by Recognizing Patterns

Recognizing patterns helps you make quick sense of the sensory input that comes to you every second. Your eyes and brain want to create patterns, even if there are no real patterns there. In Figure 3.1, you probably see four sets of two dots each rather than eight individual dots. You interpret the white space, or lack of it, as a pattern.

Figure 3.1. Your brain wants to see patterns

Individual cells respond to certain shapes

In 1959 David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel showed that some cells in the ...