Amagician has two people concealed in a long wooden box. one person’s head and arms stick out of the front, and the other’s legs stick out of the back. when the magician saws down the center, it appears the magician is sawing someone in half. this trick is based on which gestalt principle?

The Principle of closure.

Explanation:

In psychology, Gestalt therapy is a particular type of therapy that has some principles which it works with during therapy.

One of these principles is the principle of closure.

The principle of closure refers to the tendency that the brains has in which it tends to perceive forms and figures in their complete appearance despite the absence of one or more of their parts, either hidden or totally absent. So our brains tend to "complete" the picture when there are missing parts of it.

In the example, a magician has two people concealed in a long wooden box. One person's head and arms stick out of the front and the other's legs stick out of the back. Then the magician saws down the center and it appears that the magician is sawing someone in half.

In this scenario, our brain "completed" the picture, by seeing the head, arms and legs sticking out of the box, it completed the picture and assumed there was just ONE person in the box. Thus, it perceived one person in their complete appearance despite the absence of the rest of the parts.

Thus, this is an example of Principle of Closure

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