(Eds.). Visual Gestalt formation [spec. iss.]

This special issue appears on the occasion of Emanuel Leeuwenberg's retirement. During 40 years of research on visual perception, Leeuwenberg studied a wide range of topics, such as judged complexity, neon effects, subjective contours, visual pattern completion, ambiguity, assimilation and contrast, temporal order, beauty, object handedness, veridicality, and visual regularity. To him, the empirical study of these topics is not a goal in itself but rather a means to focus on underlying principles of perceptual organization. Most prominently, he advocated the simplicity principle which states that, from among all possible interpretations of a pattern, the visual system selects the interpretation with the simplest description.