What is a form?

The term form is used by different people to mean different things and by the same person to mean different things on different occasions. It can refer to the curved surfaces of a human female or the contours of a crankshaft, to a polyhedron or the style of a man's tennis game. Shape, figure, structure, pattern , order, arrangement, configuration, plan, outline, contour are similar terms without distinct meanings. This indefinite terminology is a source of confusion and obscurity for philosophers, artists , critics, and writers. It is an even more serious difficulty for scientists and psychologists. Ambiguity is excusable in the preliminary exploration and discussion of a problem, but it cannot be tolerated when a theory has reached the stage of experimental verification. A more rigorous terminology is very much needed. The psychological problem of how animals and men perceive form requires a definition of what it is that is perceived. Experiments in the field of form-perception and constancy of shape can only be decisive if one experimenter knows what the other is talking about. When the environment of an individual is said to consist of objects, places, and events, a rough threefold classification of "formal" properties is suggested. One ordinarily applies the term form to an object, arrangement to a place, and order to an event. We might agree that the perception of a single object (one delimited by a surface), the perception of a set of objects (a region of space), 1 This inquiry is connected with a series of experiments on the visual perception of the environment performed under Contract AF41 (128)-42 between Cornell University and the USAF School of Aviation Medicine. and the perception of what happens to objects (movement and sequences in time) are three distinguishable problems each of which deserves a terminology of its own. The terminology with which this paper is concerned is the first. The only kinds of visual form we shall undertake to deal with here are those associated with or derived from physical objects. Perhaps the simplest kind of shape is that embodied in an isolated object. If so, the effort at definition should begin with this kind. 1 Even in this limited sense there seem to be at least three general meanings for the term form. There is first of all the substantial shape of an object in three dimensions. Second, there is the projection of such an …