What term refers to the mind's ability to perceive an object as whole, even when incomplete?

The term that accurately describes the mind's ability to perceive an object as a whole, even when it is incomplete, is "closure." This phenomenon is one of the key concepts in Gestalt psychology, which emphasizes how we tend to organize visual information into meaningful wholes. Closure allows us to fill in the gaps in incomplete figures based on our past experiences and knowledge, enabling us to recognize familiar shapes or objects despite missing parts.

This ability is foundational for understanding how humans interpret visual stimuli and is crucial for various applications, such as art, design, and user interface development, where perceiving a complete image despite partial information is important.

The other terms, while related to perception, do not specifically focus on this cognitive process. For example, "figure-ground" refers to the ability to distinguish between an object (the figure) and its background, while "perceptual constancy" is about perceiving an object as stable and unchanging despite changes in sensory input. "Gestalt principles" encompasses a broader set of rules that describe how we organize visual elements, but it does not narrowly define the concept of closure on its own.