Pareidolia

Pareidolia is the psychological term for the human tendency to attribute familiar patterns to random stimuli, such as seeing the “face” of the Man on the Moon, envisioning animal shapes in clouds, or hearing words in electronic static. The most common manifestation of pareidolia is the tendency to see faces in random patterns or groups of objects, such as the assorted bumps and scratches on a potato.

Pareidolia is part of a larger psychological category of behaviors known as apophenia, or the tendency to try to create meaning out of unrelated events. For example, an athlete might have a lucky shirt they wear for important games. The shirt is “lucky” because the athlete was wearing the shirt when something significant occurred, such as winning a big match or playing particularly well. The pareidolic tendency to see familiar forms in arbitrary shapes or objects or to hear voices or music in noise is the mind trying to find some significance in randomness; therefore, it is classified as a form of apophenia.

Background

At one time, pareidolia was associated with mental illness. The way people interpreted visual stimuli was also seen as a way of gaining insight into the human psyche. This is, in part, the theory behind the Rorschach inkblot tests, where subjects are shown papers with images formed from inkblots and encouraged to tell an examiner what they see. Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach established the technique in 1921. He based the test on a favorite childhood game called Klecksography, which also used inkblots, after he noticed that children with certain conditions saw similar images in the blots.

While inkblot testing remains a tool of psychoanalytic diagnosis, less emphasis is placed on it in modern psychological practice. Psychologists realize that pareidolia is a normal tendency that is actually built into the human brain, and it only becomes a symptom of illness when it is excessive or interferes with a person’s ability to function.

Some researchers believe people who frequently see familiar shapes in inanimate objects or who can identify a whisper among other sounds may have a higher degree of function in certain areas of the brain. These researchers theorize that this ability is a holdover from ancient times, when the ability to discern a threat was vital to the survival of early humans.

Others note that the ability to discern the human face is one of the earliest visual skills infants develop. Responding to human faces and recognizing caregivers helps infants react to them favorably with smiles, coos, and gestures that build emotional bonds, resulting in the continued care of the infants. In later life, the ability to quickly recognize and react to friends or foes is a useful skill and one at which some people may be more adept as a result of the way their brains perceive and organize visual and auditory stimuli.

It has also been noted that once a person “sees” a face or other familiar pattern in a particular object or collection of objects, it is difficult not to see it during subsequent viewings. The brain retains the information and continues to identify it when the object is encountered again.

Examples

One of the most famous instances of pareidolia is the “face” some people see in a photograph of the surface of Mars. The Viking 1 orbiter captured this image in the 1970s. Later probes have determined that what appears to be a face from one angle is merely a formation of rocks. Numerous rock formations around the world are also said to resemble human faces when viewed from a specific angle.

Seeing images of religious figures or famous people in inanimate objects or food items is another common example of pareidolia. Sometimes, people go so far as to give additional meaning to the object because of the image they think they see. For instance, in 1994, an American woman, Diana Duyser, who was eating a grilled-cheese sandwich, perceived the image of the Virgin Mary on the toasted bread. She encased the remainder of the sandwich in plastic, surrounded by cotton and displayed it for ten years. She claimed the sandwich had special powers because it did not mold or decay over time. The woman also claimed the sandwich brought her luck, helping her to win more than $70,000 at a casino. Eventually, she sold the sandwich on eBay for $28,000.

Other Applications

Some researchers have found that computers programmed to recognize faces are also prone to false-positive readings, recognizing human faces in random patterns such as the lights on the back of a truck or the holes punched into the top part of a key. Computers not only find faces that are not there, but they also identify things as faces that even a person with a high degree of acuity would not see. In addition, computers sometimes miss actual faces if the features are obscured, even though humans can still make the connection. Some researchers think this is a consequence of the fact that humans program the computers, while others theorize that the design of faces makes them so recognizable that even machines can be made to see them.

Bibliography

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