We’ve probably all experienced pareidolia to some extent. Don’t worry, it isn’t another world-ending pandemic. Pareidolia is the word for when we humans find shapes in abstract patterns or inanimate objects. So when you next see a face in the trunk of a tree or a penis in the clouds (come on, we’ve all done it. No? Just me?) you’ll be able to show off to whoever you’re with that you’re experiencing pareidolia. It also applies to sounds – so if you think you’re hearing a hidden message in a piece of music, you probably aren’t – it’s just that pesky pareidolia.
Etymology-wise, the word itself is unsurprisingly Greek: para means ‘beside, alongside, instead [of]’ and eidōlon means ‘image, form, shape’.
So why do we do it? Evolutionary psychologists reckon that pareidolia helped our ancestors survive. There are two reasons for this. One is that babies who couldn’t recognise faces smiled less, which meant their parents cared about them less (mean). So they evolved to recognise faces to make sure their ma and pa would love them and, ultimately, protect them. The second one is to do with predators – in (very) simple terms, you’re more likely to run away from something that has a face than something that doesn’t. So it makes sense to see a face in anything that’s potentially threatening and just peg it.
Pareidolia used to be considered a sign of madness. And studies do show that people suffering from neuroses are more likely to experience it, as are people who in a negative mood. That might be because when we’re pissed off we’re on higher alert for danger, so more likely to see things that aren’t there. Women are also more likely to experience pareidolia, which is possibly due to the fact that we’re generally better than men. Sorry, better than men at using facial expressions to recognise emotions.
One of the most famous examples of pareidolia is the face on Mars. Located in the Cydonia region of the planet, it was first photographed by the Viking 1 spacecraft on 25 July 1976.
It’s a face on Mars!
Oh no it isn’t.
And in 2004, a ten-year-old cheese sandwich which supposedly has the image of the Virgin Mary burned on it sold for $28,000 on eBay. Where there’s pareidolia there’s brass, apparently…