The Gestalt principle of continuation applies to both the haptic and visual grouping of elements

The multi-sensory display of abstract data is a new and emerging area of study in the area of computer interfaces. Unfortunately the design of multi-sensory displays is complex and it is necessary to carefully consider the perceptual capabilities of humans. Therefore we aim to both collect useful guidelines that help designers of multi-sensory displays and to structure these guidelines by using appropriate high-level principles. Gestalt principles suggest themselves as one possible framework for structuring multi-sensory design guidelines. Gestalt theory explains how humans organise individual elements into groups and how humans perceive and recognise patterns. Unfortunately very little work has been done in evaluating how well these principles apply to the haptic sense. This paper focuses on how individuals use the sense of haptic (touch) to group display elements using the gestalt principle of continuation. The hypothesis of the experiment is that people used their haptic perceptions to group display elements in the same way they group elements visually. Overall we find this hypothesis to be true and that a significant number of subjects group haptic elements so that they can be interpreted as continuous lines and forms. This supports our hypothesis that the gestalt principle of continuation is applicable for both visual and haptic grouping and therefore provides a useful principle for structuring multi-sensory design guidelines.