pareidolia
peh-rih-DOH-lee-uh
Definition
The psychological phenomenon of perceiving recognizable patterns, such as faces or meaningful shapes, in random or ambiguous visual stimuli.
Etymology
Derived from the Greek words 'para' meaning 'beside' or 'beyond' and 'eidolon' meaning 'image' or 'form'. It was coined to describe the tendency to see patterns where none exist.
In the news
The article uses this term to explain why the human brain mistakenly identifies faces in inanimate objects like clouds or wall sockets. It describes this as a byproduct of a visual system that is evolutionarily optimized to favor false positives over missing potential threats.
The human brain is so desperate to find patterns that it will reliably see faces in clouds, hear words in static, and detect meaning in pure randomness, and there's a name for the glitch that makes it happen.
Read the full article ↗ScienceBlog.com