Pareidolia (pronounced /pærɪˈdoʊliə/) 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, 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 eidolon ("image"; the diminutive of eidos ("image", "form", "shape")).
I've read that face-recognition is "hard coded" in our brains as a fundamental survival strategy, so it's not surprising that pareidolia commonly takes the form of seeing faces.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, even when not looking directly at another person (as on a bus, for instance), most people can peripherally see/sense/"tell" that another person is looking right at them--the face turned towards us is an extremely powerful perception, I guess.