Lidwell, Holden and Butler's reference covers 125 design principles drawn from psychology, perception, ergonomics and cognitive science, each explained in two pages with visual examples. Published by Rockport in 2010, it is a standard reference across design disciplines rather than a book about any single one.
For motion design students, the most relevant principles are those covering perception and attention: figure-ground relationships, common fate, closure, chunking and continuity. These are the mechanisms motion design exploits, and understanding them formally gives students a vocabulary for design decisions that otherwise remain intuitive.