Two eyes, a mouth and then your brain does not take much time to create a human face. If you tend to notice faces in the inanimate objects around you, you're not alone.
Do you remember when you are flat, basking in the sun, and your eyes in the sky looking white clouds, so your imagination moves and then depicts forms of those clouds, or rather faces, animals, or others, this condition is not normal, but it is a condition that may be pathological for some and is called Pareidolia .
The term pareidolia refers to two Greek words - PARA and IDOL - meaning "false or random image". Scientists have also interpreted this phenomenon as a kind of apophenia, which means projection. Any attempt to link separate things or events to each other to give them a new meaning has no validity. It was also known as that psychological phenomenon that makes some people see an image or hear a mysterious voice. It may be random.
Studies indicate that nervous people and people who suffer from negative moods are more likely to develop pareidolia. The explanation for this excessive phenomenon is that these people are on high alert for danger almost all the time. Therefore, they are likely to come across unfamiliar faces or sounds.
People may see the same image, but their vision of it differs from one person to another, depending on their cultural, social, psychological, religious and other backgrounds.
Statistics have shown that women are more likely to see faces, this may be related to the fact that women have a better ability than men to detect emotions by decoding facial expressions.
Scientists have analyzed this phenomenon scientifically and philosophically , there are several reasons for the formation of the phenomenon of paridolia:
From a scientific view , The researchers believe this occurs because interfering sensory mechanisms are activated when we look at human faces and when we feel the face of Paridolia. The researchers also found that these effects were significantly reduced when facial-like features were removed from the animals.
From a philosophical point of view, there are many theories about this phenomenon. Experts have said that the cause of pareidolia is the human senses, as they may believe that the eye is the one who looks at things wrongly, or even the ear; Try to listen to an audio recording, but play it in reverse, and you will feel that this sound is provocative and somewhat scratchy to the ear, although it is the same recording that you have heard before, and you will not be affected.
Pareidolia often has religious overtones to some. Some studies in Finland revealed that people who are religious or have a strong belief in the supernatural are more likely to see faces in inanimate objects and landscapes.
The researchers also note that the Paridolia face is an optical illusion that conveys a sense of personality, social meaning, or evokes emotions in us.
And if you feel Pareidolia looking down on you, questioning your motives, or conveying some emotion, it may be because the creature's features trigger a mechanism in your brain that becomes active to read this kind of information from human faces.
But the practice of Pareidolia is not a bad thing finally , according to the opinion of some clients, provided that it does not cross its limits and reach hallucinations or the intensity of belief that requires psychological treatment intervention. Restricted pareidolia stimulates creativity and the secretion of the pleasure hormone that controls the behavior and cognition process known as dopamine, and sometimes even psychologists use it to treat their patients. Personally, I am a Pareidolia person, I don't care if it's a pathological phenomenon, but, I it's for me a way of inspiration and fertile imagination. I enjoy myself while reading nature entities differently offering my imagination spaces to grow more creativity. And you, are you a Pareidolia person?!!!
Thanks for taking time to read
Resources
1https://earthsky.org/human-world/seeing-things-that-arent-there/
2https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par%C3%A9idolie
