Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

How does apophenia strike ya? Or pareidolia?

Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.
The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad,[1] who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness", but it has come to represent the human tendency to seek patterns in random nature in general, as with gambling, paranormal phenomena, religion, and even attempts at scientific observation.

Pareidolia ( /pærɨˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-doh-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- – "beside", "with", or "alongside"—meaning, in this context, something faulty or wrong (as in paraphasia, disordered speech) and eidōlon – "image"; the diminutive of eidos – "image", "form", "shape". Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

(definitions courtesy of wikipedia).

Talk about synchronicity, I was looking for exactly that word myself. Thanks CheddarMelt!

My sister recently sent me a photo now posted at: http://www.heimhenge.com/downloads/LeafMan.jpg

She said she went outside when she heard her dog barking loudly at something behind the garage. They live in a rural area, so it could have been any number of things scaring the animal. When she went to look, she saw a tree branch had broken, and was hanging down and catching the low sunlight just right. Sure looks like a "leaf man" to me, and that's what her dog was barking at. So apparently pareidolia is not limited to humans, but is a more general phenomenon experienced by all creatures with highly developed eye-brain systems.

I incorporated that "Leaf Man" photo into a recent blog post on pareidolia. Read it here: http://heimhenge.com/skylights/?p=1992

Pardon my blatant self-promotion, but my post seemed on topic.

Thank you sir. My blog is about astronomy AND meteorology. If you can see it in the sky, day or night, it's fodder for discussion and open for questions. Next week, I'll be taking a close look at those "mirages" commonly seen on highways when driving on flat, open, hot surfaces. New post each Monday. Just wish I had the time to blog more frequently than weekly.

You are correct that I should give a nod to WWW on my links page, and so I have: http://heimhenge.com/skylights/?page_id=1901

The new link is at the bottom of the page, under the "Recommended Blogs, Forums, and Websites" heading. Didn't really need to "justify" the inclusion of WWW, other than by mentioning it's a great site for writers (and bloggers).

Thanks for the suggestion. It is only right.