Introduction

Pareidolia is a psychological condition in which our brain interprets meaningful patterns, usually impression of human face, out of random and vague stimulus. This ability lies behind many supposedly miraculous appearances, such as that notorious face on Mars, the devil's face in the smoke of 911 incident, the monkey god in the Jurong Monkey Tree, or even the Man in the Moon. A more common example is faces in the cloud, where supposedly random patterns were seen as significant. Below is an example of 'faces in the cloud'. Can you see a giant seahorse in the sky?

The word Pareidolia is from Greek para-, almost, plus eidolon, the diminutive of eidos, appearance or form. Another definition is that the term 'pareidolia' is a compound of the Latin prefix para (usually 'beyond' as is the case for paranormal, but in this instance more along the lines of 'false') and eidolon, a phantom or ghostly apparition. The first definition concerns on the psychological phenomenon of how human brains interpret significant patterns when the same object is viewed slightly from different perspectives. The latter one mainly used for frequently documented instances of pareidolia are those concerning the manifestation of religious or ghostly figures in the random patterns of clouds, rocks, flames, flora and toasted bread. So the term Paridolia was conveniently borrowed by paranormal enthusiasts from psychology academia to describe such phenomenon.

In a 1994 article, Steven Goldstein first provided the following definition for the notion of pareidolia (pronounced pair'-eye-doh"-lee-uh):

Pareidolia: The human infusion of patterns or meaning on random audio or visual events [1]

As to the image ... it is nothing more than the human ability called pareidolia to interpret essentially random patterns as recognizable images — such as seeing the face of the Man in the Moon. Skeptical Inquirer; 3 Jan. 2005

The talents of people who believe in the paranormal don't end there. It seems that they are also better than non-believers at perceiving meaningful patterns in apparently random noise. The classic example of this trait, which is known as pareidolia, is when people claim to see images of the Virgin Mary, say, on the wall of a building or a tortilla. New Scientist 28 Jan. 2009


Explanations

Astronomer Carl Sagan theorised this identification of human bodies and faces to be a form of survival technique [2]. Carl said that we human beings are programmed in our nature from birth to identify the human face. This allows people to use only minimal details to recognize faces from a distance and in poor visibility but can also lead them to interpret random images or patterns of light and shade as being faces. When equipped with such ability of recognizing faces, human is likely to survive better throughout generations of evolution. It was also said that newborn babies by instinct would first recognize human faces (usually of the mothers) than any object else.

A 2009 magnetoencephalography study found that objects incidentally perceived as faces evoke an early (165 ms) activation in the ventral fusiform cortex, at a time and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas other common objects do not evoke such activation. This activation is similar to a slightly earlier peak at 130 ms seen for images of real faces. The authors suggest that face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon. [3]

But this ability brings with it the inevitable drawback of false positives. No one is immune, and thanks to advertising and the mass media, most of us are being persistently trained and encouraged to recognise human forms in random phenomena throughout our lives.

Another theory cites the continuing evolution of the human brain towards favouring its logical left side functions over the more emotional and creative right, seen as the primary biological reason for the decline in the significance of spirituality in modern times. This animation of a dancing woman (below) is intended as an elementary test to judge whether the perceiver favours the left or right side of their brains; the right is indicated by a clockwise spin, and vice-versa. Considering you're currently reading a website about the paranormal, it's a safe bet that you favour the imaginative side and she'll be spinning clockwise. [4] (Click here)

Pareidolia or Paranormal?

This is the ultimate question we want to ask ourselves. After a field trip of paranormal investigation, footage is gathered and analysed, sometimes anomalies are observed from photographs, audio or video clips. How certain are we they are of pareidolia or paranormal? They may be blobs of light or some random pixels which can be seen as ghostly apparitions. Proclaiming them to be hard proof of an afterlife is counterproductive to serious investigation and the search for answers, especially for a research group as empirically-minded as the SPI.

Even spirit photography is prone to be capturing so-called anomalies that are natural phenomenon mistaken or camera fault. For pictures that look like resemblance of something meaningful from random pixels, we at least will have to acknowledge the human brain's capacity for delusion in the context of pareidolia. Pareidolia would serve as one but may not be the only one explanation for the manifestation of the ghostly image. The second natural explanation could be coincidence. Think about is it merely a series of coincidence: the time and place where you took the photo, the chance that you come across this picture, how you really get into studying the random pixels out of many things that you do, and how does the picture mean to you?

On the other hand, there is no single proven written authoritative document that dictates whether faces in photos are of ghosts. Below is quoted from SSPIA, an established Scottish Paranormal Research group. From the history of reputed ghost photos as we have been observing, there really is no consensus on what formula defines a ghost's appearance. Whether it's a human figure in colour or black-and-white, transparent or as real as the day, or merely moisture and dust particles mischievously dancing in the air and pretending to be orbs, there is no guideline to state that a human resemblance is required. If you do see something that resembles a human, ask yourself... does it really? Or does it just have the same vague, generic similarity as can be found in the unlikeliest places throughout nature?

People are however being called paranoid when they overly take images of paridolia as 'signs'. Lets remain sober as the final reasoned judgment rest on you in telling pareidolia or paranormal. Don't be too zealous first when you first spot an incredible face or figure in a photo. By our views, pareidolia and paranormal must not necessary be a mutually exclusive thing. Why can't they co-exist? They may even correlate.

Putting it in a very simple equation: Pareidolia + Coincidence + X-factors = Paranormal?

Or X-factors * (Pareidolia + Coincidence) = Paranormal?

The combo of pareidolia and coincidence are known to be natural occurrences which is favoured by skeptics to argue over. The X-factors however are the unknown, but without which the paranormal is just normal. Some may want to call it an invisible supernatural force which is beyond our human comprehension; some just call it destiny. Whatever it is, some ominous power is believed by some people as a force orchestrating a series of happenings that looks pretty meaningless if they were put isolated and individually. The compound is a paranormal phenomenon that can be taken as a message or a sign from the other realm. Think of a scenario where a ghost or a spirit from the other world want to tell you something in this world. You wouldn't expect them to just drop out of nowhere in front of you, tell you that hey I am a spirit, I'd gonna talk to you... They manifest through subtle hints for example, pareidolia, to communicate with you; the connection picks up only when you have faith in them (your belief). Skeptics who do not even admit the existence of X-factors because it lacks of scientific proofs would simply regard all are just pure coincidences, and brush them off.

To simplify things, if one believes in the X-factors, paranormal makes sense and exists to them. Or else if X-factors are denied, just substitute X-factors = 0 in the above equations, all are just normal then.

In the old days, miraculous signs were taken more seriously in attitude of trying to understand them. Now it degraded to some kind of entertainment if not amusement, by the broadcast of mass media and tabloids. As the knowledge of mankind advances, we understand now most of the pareidolia phenomena could be a matter of psychological condition on trying to visually map certain vague patterns into something mentally meaningful to us. On the positive aspect, we should be in a better position nowadays to read and decode pareidolia images, in a sensible manner.

There is no absolute simple benchmark of judgment so far on pareidolia or paranormal, at least objectively. SPI is working towards this direction on telling pareidolia and paranormal apart, in the near future.


Pareidolia is not misperception

Written by John Greschak, and fully credited to his photo, below is an argument by John Greschak that pareidolia is not a misperception.

This image, which John Greshak cited in his article On Inconspicuous Images within Images of Glass Marbles, contains a number of inconspicuous images. For example, one may see a relatively prominent inconspicuous image of a woman in the right half of the image.

Modern-day skeptics would likely say the root cause of this inconspicuous image is "pareidolia". Note: The term pareidolia originated in the literature of Scientific Skepticism. Scientific skeptics disbelieve, and attempt to dispel, claims that lack scientific evidence. In the article in which the term pareidolia was introduced, Steven Goldstein writes, "A skeptic's 'belief' is that a claim has a normal explanation."

In this context, John Greschak suspects the term pareidolia is invoked because it sounds more scientific than misperception. Further, it appears to be specific; it poses as some particular form of misperception that is well-documented in the psychology literature and understood [5]. Once labeled as such, the case in question may be closed as having been explained scientifically. Perhaps most importantly, the skeptic avoids using the more widely known term misperception, because for any image, no one can say that a particular interpretation or perception is incorrect.

At the end of this article, a number of definitions for pareidolia is listed below. Since the Goldstein article, other definitions of pareidolia have been offered (listed here not necessarily in chronological order) as cited by John Greschak.

Definition of pareidolia	Source
The human infusion of patterns or meaning on random audio or visual events	[1]
A psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant	Wikipedia
The tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the viewer	Wiktionary
The erroneous or fanciful perception of a pattern or meaning in something that is actually ambiguous or random	Word Spy
A type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct	The Skeptic's Dictionary
Misperception of an ambiguous stimulus as something specific	theFolklorist.com
A psychological condition in which the brain falsely creates meaningful patterns, usually pictures of the human face, out of random patterns	World Wide Words
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End note:

When I am writing this article, I am sipping my cup of tea for mind refreshment. Freaky. Suddenly I glanced at my tea cup lid, that has a SMILEY FACE looking at me! The same tea cup and tea bags I have been using for a long time. It was the very first time, the stain formed a face. I have a habit of not to infuse the tea for too long. Usually a fresh tea bag is put in hot water for several minutes, taken out and placed on the lid. When the first cup was half consumed, water was added to fill the cup again and the used tea bag was put back to the cup. I was in the middle of drinking the second cup of tea and noticed the smiley face....

1. A rectangular smiley was discovered on my tea cup, out of great surprise; 2. Close up of the smiley;
3. It is just a normal tea bag.... 4. Inspection of the bottom of the tea bag, it has quite a smooth surface;
How on earth such a strange pattern formed out of tea stain??