The whole is perceived before, and differently from, the sum of its parts.
The face-vase figure is the demonstration: you see a face or a vase, never the collection of curves that constitute either. The whole arrives first.
In practice
- A photograph of a street reads instantly as a queue or as a protest, and nobody arrives at that by counting the people in it.
- A team is described as "dysfunctional" before anyone can name a single interaction that was.