If we have two objects in the same pattern, they should have similar shapes. My stove doesn’t work like this. Don Norman, in his book The Design of Everyday Things, pointed out this problem.
When the pot’s boiling over, I’ve got the oven open, and everything’s pretty stressful, which knob corresponds to the pot on the top right?
It’s, uh, the second one down I think. I have to look, every time. Surely I shouldn’t have to look every time.
This is mapping, which, along with the Gestalt grouping principle, is another assumption that happens early, that we can deduce from looking at experiments and seeing how we work.
This actually leads me into a slightly different area from perception, which is response.
Response has the same pressure on it as perception, which is to perform as fast as possible. It also has its own set of assumptions that can come into play preconsciously.