In a 1994 article, Steven Goldstein 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.1I am struck by the self-contradictory nature of this definition. The American Heritage Dictionary defines random as "having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective"; it defines purposeless as "lacking a purpose; meaningless or aimless."2 From this, random things have no specific pattern or meaning. I believe randomness is not an intrinsic property; rather, a given thing is perceived to be either random or not by each individual. Said another way, if I perceive a specific pattern or meaning in something, then by definition, that thing cannot be random (to me). Pareidolia, as defined here, is impossible. Thus, the concept is vacuous. (You might say, wait, one may find a specific pattern or meaning in anything. I would say, perhaps you believe, as I do, that nothing is random.) Since the Goldstein article, other definitions of pareidolia have been offered (listed here not necessarily in chronological order): Pareidolia 2: A psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Wikipedia.Here, the terms used to characterize the perceived object are vague, ambiguous, obscure and random. The American Heritage Dictionary states that vague, obscure and ambiguous are synonyms that mean "lacking clarity of meaning"; vague and obscure mean "not clearly expressed", while ambiguous means "open to more than one interpretation". I shall group these terms under the term ambiguous because I believe vague and obscure things are ambiguous, by their nature. So for pareidolia, the perceived object is either ambiguous or random, or both, depending upon the particular definition. I have addressed randomness already. Regarding ambiguity, when one is presented with a stimulus, ordinarily one tries to understand it. In the process, one might interpret the stimulus as patterned, recognizable, significant, meaningful or ambiguous. This is called perception; according to the American Heritage Dictionary, it is "the recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli based chiefly on memory". As with randomness, I do not believe ambiguity is an intrinsic property; instead, a given individual believes a given thing is ambiguous or not based on their own perception. To me, all stimuli are ambiguous. (If you do not believe all stimuli are ambiguous, try to name one that is not.) Definitions Pareidolia 2 and Pareidolia 3 imply that pareidolia and perception are synonymous. The other definitions of pareidolia cited here (numbers 4 through 7) are synonymous with the term misperception (the noun form of misperceive: "to perceive incorrectly, misunderstand"). They use the terms erroneous, fanciful, illusion, misperception and falsely. So at best, pareidolia is a synonym for perception or misperception. More strongly, the term pareidolia is unnecessary because it does not stand for anything that is not represented by the terms perception or misperception. Why then is the term pareidolia used? Consider the following image: |
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This image, which I cited in the 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, I suspect 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.3 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. 1. Steven Goldstein is credited with coining the term pareidolia in the following article: Goldstein, Steven 1994. "Watch What You're Thinking! The Skeptics Toolbox II Conference." Skeptical Inquirer. Summer 1994. Available: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_n4_v18/ai_16139284. 2. All definitions cited here (except those for pareidolia) are from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. (2000). Available: http://www.bartleby.com/61/. 3. The term pareidolia has existed for 14 years. It has been used in tens of thousands of Web pages and is quite popular in certain circles. However, to date there is almost no mention of it in the psychology literature. 4. Some common misspellings of pareidolia are: paredolia, paradolia, paridolia, pereidolia, peridolia, pareidola and pareidolias. |