Since 1992
Print and digital marketing
By Barbara McAllister
Word of the Day: Pareidolia
Pareidolia is the human tendency to find images in random visual patterns. It’s our inclination to see faces in clouds or inanimate objects. Pronounced pare-e-DOH-lee-a., the term comes from the Greek words “para” meaning beside or beyond, and “eidolon” for form or image. Pareidolia was once thought of as a symptom of psychosis, but is now recognized as a normal human tendency. Carl Sagan speculated that humans have an evolutionary need to recognize faces, a hardwired skill that allows babies to thrive by bonding quickly with their parents.
There are many examples of pareidolia in everyday life, such as trees that look like animals and human faces in everything from coffee cups to smiling car grills. An internet search for pareidolia images turns up a number of fun and funny occurrences seen in everyday objects. The phenomenon is often connected to religious images, notably the woman who thought her grilled cheese sandwich bore the image of the Virgin Mary. It later sold on eBay for $28,000. Not bad bread for a 10-year-old half eaten half sandwich.
Golden Palace.com, an online casino, bought the sandwich. Casinos are no stranger to apophenia, the generalized term for seeing patterns in random data, not just visually in objects. The tendency to perceive connections in unrelated events gives rise to the magical thinking known as gambler’s fallacy. Finding meaningful patterns in random events also helps fuel conspiracy theories. Apophenia and pareidolia may go hand in hand. The woman who saw the image of the Virgin Mary in her grilled cheese sandwich experienced an example of pareidolia. It would have been apophenia if she interpreted that as a communication from God.
