Have you ever wondered why you mistake things for other familiar things in the middle of the night, like to realize that what you thought was an arm is actually just a curtain knot? Have you ever see faces in some simple things such as buns, tree trunks or bunch of dried leaves? Have you ever contemplated of having an eye checkup or considered these scenarios as hallucinations which worry you too much?
For one, the phenomenon might circumstantially differ from person to person.
Seeing visual images and patterns in clouds, recognizing a smell or taste in different situations and hearing sinister messages in a song played backwards… This is called pareidolia, from the ancient Greek words para, which means concurrent, and eidōlon, which means image. Merriam Webster dictionary defined pareidolia as the tendency to see specific image in random and ambiguous patterns.
For one, the phenomenon might circumstantially differ from person to person.
Seeing visual images and patterns in clouds, recognizing a smell or taste in different situations and hearing sinister messages in a song played backwards… This is called pareidolia, from the ancient Greek words para, which means concurrent, and eidōlon, which means image. Merriam Webster dictionary defined pareidolia as the tendency to see specific image in random and ambiguous patterns.
Put simply, pareidolia is giving meaning to things humans see (and even in what they hear, touch or smell). However, pareidolia is a scenario wired to the ability of the human mind to perceive meanings through associations and patterns. The human mind is not a limited study and is accordingly vast, and how it creates meanings follows the priming effects whereas the brain is primed to make decisions through familiar recognitions. Pareidolia, also referred to as “patternicity”, falls under the tendency of the so called type I error, false positive, whereas the human mind believes something that is only perspectively real bu is, in truth, something else.
(See: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/patternicity-finding-meaningful-patterns/ )
Pareidolia is then used to understand one’s mental state. Psychologists today use pareidolia and Hermann Rorschach ink blot test as an attempt to understand the human mind. Humans make interpretations that are used by the psychologists to understand their personality and to assess possible mental problems. In addition, pareidolia was once considered as a symptom of psychosis. But then, pareidolia is found to be common in everyone as human brains are significantly wired to associations and meanings.
Carl Sagan, in his book “The Demon Haunted World—Science as a Candle in the Night” argued that the ability to see and recognize faces in distant or vague signals is an important factor in survival. Also, artists use the pareidolia as a chance to embed meanings in their works. For instance, observers take Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings as an example as it gathers erotic readings from its viewers.
Pareidolia may be as vague as the patterns and images related to it, but it is surely a part of the “thinking and feeling” human being as a whole. Whatever the reasons why someone sees faces in mountains, how someone hears sinister message in songs played backwards, how someone makes out rabbits hopping through the clouds in the sky, or why some would take flower paintings sensually are basically part of how someone thinks and feels. Albeit, there may be no meaning in everythingor be different for each individual, respect and sensitivity on how each individual feels may make a difference today.
Carl Sagan, in his book “The Demon Haunted World—Science as a Candle in the Night” argued that the ability to see and recognize faces in distant or vague signals is an important factor in survival. Also, artists use the pareidolia as a chance to embed meanings in their works. For instance, observers take Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings as an example as it gathers erotic readings from its viewers.
Pareidolia may be as vague as the patterns and images related to it, but it is surely a part of the “thinking and feeling” human being as a whole. Whatever the reasons why someone sees faces in mountains, how someone hears sinister message in songs played backwards, how someone makes out rabbits hopping through the clouds in the sky, or why some would take flower paintings sensually are basically part of how someone thinks and feels. Albeit, there may be no meaning in everythingor be different for each individual, respect and sensitivity on how each individual feels may make a difference today.