Final answer:
The principle of proximity in perceptual organization suggests that objects that are close to each other tend to be grouped together. In the context of reading and perceiving words, we group the letters of a given word together because there are no spaces between the letters, and we perceive words because there are spaces between each word.
Step-by-step explanation:
The way in which you quickly group the individual letters in this test item into separate words best illustrates the principle of proximity. The principle of proximity in perceptual organization suggests that objects that are close to each other tend to be grouped together. In the context of reading and perceiving words, we group the letters of a given word together because there are no spaces between the letters, and we perceive words because there are spaces between each word.