Rules of Perceptual Organization: Proximity

In psychology, proximity refers to the fact that when objects are close together, we are more likely to perceive them as belonging to the same group.

For example, in the following picture, we perceive the sheep as belonging to three groups since the front three sheep are clumped together, the middle two sheep are clumped together, and the two sheep in the back are grouped together. The sheep's proximity to one another makes us perceive three separate groups:

In addition, in the proceeding picture, we perceive there to be two groups of children for the same reason: