JREF IN THE CLASSROOM

PAREIDOLIA

Pareidolia: Do You See What You Think You See?

2013
JAMES RANDI EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

DO YOU SEE
WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

STUDENT EDITION

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

PAREIDOLIA

about the

JREF

The James Randi Educational Foundation is a not-for-profit organization

founded in 1996. Its aim is to promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public
and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas.
The Foundations goals include the following:

Providing educational resources and grants to educators and students who are
working to advance critical thinking and skepticism in their communities.

Demonstrating to the public and the media, through educational seminars and

workshops, the consequences of accepting paranormal and super natural claims

without sufficient evidence.

Maintaining a comprehensive library of books, videos, jour nals, and archival

resources which are available to the public online.

Supporting local skeptical organizations by providing speakers, grants,

promotional and educational resources, and training in grassroots organizing.

Supporting and conducting scientific research into paranormal claims and

publishing the findings online and in skeptic periodicals.

To raise public awareness of these issues, the Foundation offers a $1 Million prize to any
person or persons who can demonstrate psychic, super natural, or paranormal ability of
any kind under mutually agreed upon scientific conditions.

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PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

TO THE READER

to the reader...
Back when our ancestors had to watch for big
beasties who might jump out of the trees and
gobble em up, they had to learn to tell what
shadows, light, noises and shapes meant as they
mastered the art of survival. Magicians know this,
too, and they slip in small hints and suggestions
that will mislead the decisions of their audiences
Well, we still tend to invent shapes and patterns
where there really are none, and this booklet will
lead you around some of the bumps in the road
that arent there, the eyes, the faces, and the
threats we can and we do make up so easily.
So here we go on our very own Yellow Brick Road where
well see lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my! that pop up
because were still a bit worried about that funny sound,
but more about those faces
Oh, my!

James Randi

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

INTRODUCTION

introduction
Human beings are not the biggest, strongest, or fastest creatures
in the animal kingdom. We do not have the best eyesight, the best
hearing, or the best sense of smell. Yet human beings have managed
to survive and thrive in a dangerous world. We avoid obstacles and
predators, communicate with other humans, and find food, thanks to
an extraordinary brain that uses information from all of the senses to
figure out the world around us.
The human eye, for example, is a truly amazing organ. It is able to
sense light and measure its energy. Yet, the eye cannot see. Seeing is
a process of the entire visual system and most of the work is done by
the brain.
One common misconception is that our eyes work like cameras,
sending pictures to the brain, which then records those pictures along
with sounds that enter from our ears. The process is really much more
complex than that.

MORE LIKE A PAINTING THAN A PICTURE

In general, your brain wants to identify what is
in the world around you so that you can take
action to avoid it, interact with it, or ignore it.
It tries to make sense of the information it gets
from the senses without using more energy
than is necessary. This information is limited,
so your brain uses past experiences to help the
process along. It assumes that the things you
encounter are a lot like things that you have
encountered in the past.
In other words, what we think we are seeing, hearing,
touching, tasting, and smelling is only our brains
best guess about what is out there. Our perceptions of
the world are constructed from sensory information,
expectations, and memory. They are not reflections of
the world, like photographs. They are representations
of the world, much like a painting is a representation of
a person, object, or scene.

ASK
If the best your brain can do is
guess what a shape, object, or
scene is, then why is it usually
right? How do you think we
are we able to figure out what
most things are?

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

HOW WE LEARN TO SEE

how we learn to see

Humans have some abilities which appear to be built-in. For example,
newborn infants will stare longer at dots if they are arranged to look
like a face (see Figure 1). We also have built-in responses such as
fear of sudden, loud sounds, and heights. But we are not born with the
ability to fully recognize sounds and objects. Instead, it develops as we
experience and interact with our environment. We do not record our
experiences like a camera does. Instead, each experience changes
the physical landscape of our brain just a little bit.
1. Goren, C. C., Sarty, M., & Wu, P. Y. (1975). Visual following and pattern discrimination of face-like stimuli by newborn infants.Pediatrics,56(4), 544-549.

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

HOW WE LEARN TO SEE

Figure 1: Infants will stare longer at the

configuration on the left than they will the right
(Goren, Sarty, & Wu, 1975).

Imagine a neighborhood with a field of tall

grass in the middle. A new school sits on
one side of the field and houses on the other
side. The first child to walk to school will
choose a place to enter the field, perhaps
where there is an open gate, and walk in
the general direction of the school, but she
will have no path to follow. The next child to
start in the same place is more likely follow
the path of the first child, who mashed the
grass down as she walked, than to walk an
entirely diff erent path. He may wander a bit,
especially if he gets lost in thought, but he
will mash the grass down a little more than
the child before him and add some changes
to the path. As more children start at the
same place, they will cover the same ground
until there is a well-wor n, clear path across
the field. You may have seen grassless paths
like this at your own schoolplaces where
people choose to cut across the lawn instead
of following the sidewalk.

Each child who follows that path will find it

easier to walk than the child before as less
and less grass is in the way. If there are many
places to start and many children, the field
will be full of paths, crossing, merging, and
dividing. Well-used paths will be easier to
follow than the paths that only a few children
have used.
Sensory information is like a child setting out
to walk to school through a field. The closer
that information matches with a previous
experience, the easier it is for the brain to
make sense of it as it follows an established
pathway.
These pathways are how experience teaches
us rules of thumb, called heuristics,
which allow us to make quick guesses about
what is likely to be out there by recognizing
familiar patter ns. The more familiar a patter n
is to us, the more likely we will recognize it
and the less time it will take to do so.

ASK
Our brains decide what a shape, object, or sound is by
using past experience. How does your brain deal with
things that you have never encountered before?

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

PATTERNS AND MEANING

patterns and meaning

We are so practiced at recognizing patterns that we sometimes go a little
overboard. When what we see or hear is unclear, the brain sometimes
guesses anyway. This often happens when random or unorganized sounds
or objects form familiar patterns simply by chance.
Human beings are social creatures, so faces are very important to us. We see them
everywhere. The headlights on vehicles look like eyes, dont they? We see faces so easily
that we now express emotions in casual written communication with simple punctuation
(e.g., :-) to indicate a smile).
We misidentify patter ns in all kinds of objects and sounds, even when we understand
that they are a trick of the mind. They can be shocking and amusing, but they are almost
always due to the human tendency to perceive vague or random images and sounds
as significant or f amiliar. This tendency is called pareidolia. The most well-known
example is the tendency to see meaningful shapes (e.g., ducks or sailboats) in clouds.
Satellite images used to create Google Earth and other map programs have revealed
a number of interesting shapes carved into sand dunes and other geological features. A
gas well at the top of a hill in Alberta, Canada looks just like an ear bud because of the
shape of the hill and placement of a road (see Figure 2). Seen from the sky, the hill forms
the profile of a person wearing an elaborate headdress and the well is precisely where
the ear would be. The road leading up to the well looks like the ear bud cord.
Figure 2:
Satellite image
of hill in Alberta,
Canada, 2012
Google

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

PATTERNS AND MEANING

Figure 3: Lenin in shower curtain; photo courtesy of Phil Plait

In November of 2003, a few

years before he would serve as
president of the JREF (a role he
served from 2008-2009), Bad
Astronomy author Phil Plait was
stunned to find a face staring back
at him from his shower curtain.
The pattern of water on the curtain
looked so much like Vladimir
Lenin that he took a picture of it.
In a blog post, he wrote, I knew
instantly it looked like Lenin,
and also that it was simply water
in the shower curtain. But man,
itreallylooks like Lenin. Dr. Plait
explained why these sightings are
not as significant or meaningful as
we often think they are.

As an astronomer, Dr. Plait is interested in the patter ns that people claimed to see in
pictures taken by telescopes and space probes. For example, in 1976 a picture of Mars
taken by the Viking 1 spacecraft drew a lot of attention due to what looked like a f ace in a
rock formation (see Figure 4). Many claimed it was evidence of life, perhaps a monument
left by ancient Martians. However, much better images were taken in the years that
followed and it was clear by 2001 that the formation was not really face-shaped after all
(see Figure 5).

Figure 4: Taken by Viking 1 in 1976

Figure 5: Taken by mars global surveyor (mgs)

in 2001. Images courtesy of nasaimages.org

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

PATTERNS AND MEANING
Figure 6: Rorschach inkblots

ASK
Todays computers are capable of identifying some objects and
even people. Do you think they see faces in everything, too? Do
they experience pareidolia? Why do you/dont you think so?

DOES PAREIDOLIA SAY SOMETHING

ABOUT YOU?
More than 100 years ago, a man named Hermann
Rorschach developed a test that he believed would
allow psychologists to diagnose psychological
problems in their patients. He used inkblots, a
technique in which a few drops of ink are place in
the middle of a folded piece of paper and allowed to
form a shape. Since none of the shapes was created to
show anything in particular, Rorschach assumed that the
patient would project his or her secret inner thoughts in
deciding what it most looked like.
Rorschach died in 1922, but his test was widely used in
the 1960s and 70s. It has since been discarded because, as
it tur ns out, interpretations of these images tell us almost
nothing about a persons psychological health. But, the
images are useful for many other things. We can lear n a lot
about pareidolia from them!

try this:
Can you make pareidolia happen? The answer is yes. You may need to try several times
before you have a successful example, but all you need is a sound or image that is similar to
something familiar. An easy way to do this is to create inkblots:

1. Fold a piece of thick paper in half and crease it.

2. Unfold the paper and place a few drops of poster paint or other thick pigment (something that will not immediately soak
into the paper) onto one side of the paper in a somewhat random manner, but make sure there is some near the crease.

3. Refold the paper, pressing on the blob of paint. Allow it to

spread out in whatever way it goes.

4. Unfold and let dr y.

10

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

AGENCY AND EXPECTATION

Agency and Expectation

Humans do not just look for patterns; we also automatically look for
purpose or meaning in those patterns. Sometimes when people who see a
face or other familiar shape in an unusual place, they assume that it was
put there by someone or something (an agent) for a reason.

RELIGIOUS IMAGES
Images of Jesus Christ have been thought
to appear in everything from snack foods
to bird droppings. In 2004, a ten-year-old
grilled cheese sandwich sold on eBay for
$28,000 because it contained the image
of a woman thought to be the Virgin Mary.
In 2005, a cinnamon bun that looked
strikingly similar to Mother Theresa (now
a saint) was stolen from a display case in
the coff ee shop where it was baked. Many
people have traveled great distances and
stood in line for hours for a chance to see
vague Madonna-shaped figures formed by
dripping water, reflections of light, halfmelted candles, and knots in tree trunks,
even if they have to be tur ned upside-down.
In each case, there is no credible evidence
that anything extraordinary has happened,
but the f aithful often say that they f eel
comforted by such things. They believe
that God, Jesus Christ, or the spirit of Mary
placed the image as a sign that they are
watching over the f aithful.

Figure 7: Image of Jesuson a piece of toast

Figure 8:
Ghost box
photo
courtesy
of Ben
Radford

MESSAGES FROM THE SPIRIT WORLD

When we expect or want to see or hear
something specific, it is much easier
to misperceive what we have seen or
heard. Some self-identified paranormal
investigators (called ghost hunters) use
a device called a ghost box to record
radio signals and other background noise.
Their goal is to capture the voices of spirits,
extraterrestrials, or other invisible entities.
The box works like a radio that wont stop
scanning, so it picks up static and bits of
words or music from broadcast radio and
television channels here and there. These
bits are almost always misinterpreted by
the listener as meaningful. He (or she) may
believe that he has heard his own name or
the name of a ghost he suspects is present.
When words or phrases are clear, the
listener looks for a meaningful context for
them, a message that a spirit may be trying
to deliver. The ghost hunter expects to find
evidence of ghosts, so when his brain is
processing the sounds, its best guess will
be something that he expects a ghost to say.

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

AGENCY AND EXPECTATION

11

SATANIC MESSAGES
Much like those who
hear messages from
spirits in static and
random sounds, many
people in the 1970s
and 80s heard what
they thought where
were evil hidden
messages in rock
music. In fact, several
bands were forced to
defend themselves in
court when messages
were discovered in
recordings that were
played backwards.

kind was groundless. The

message the accusers
claimed to hear was
a form of pareidolia.
Information from the
senses is processed by the
brain using the pathways
our experiences have
created, ending with our
best guesses. The most
f amiliar or most recently
experienced words and
images will be the best
guesses, but if the sensory
information is not enough to
even form a guess, we will
easily accept a suggestion
from someone else.

Although some artists

have used a backward
recording technique
(sometimes ref erred to as
backmasking), almost
every accusation of this

In 1985, psychologists Vokey

and Read demonstrated
that we are likely to hear
a message in nonsense
sounds if someone tells

2. Vokey, J. R. & Read, J. D. (1985). Subliminal messages. American Psychologist, 40(11), 1231-1239.

us what they believe the

message says. Since the
accusers in many of the
backmasking cases
claimed that the source of
the messages was Satan
and that religious material
was free of such messages,
the researchers used a
recording of the 23rd Psalm
from the Holy Bible. They
also chose a passage from
the poem Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll because it
is meaningless when heard
forward. They listened
carefully until they found
pieces that could be
interpreted as something
meaningful, if silly. For
example, part of the poem
played backwards sounds
a lot like, Saw a girl with a
weasel in her mouth.

12

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

AGENCY AND EXPECTATION

Participants in the study listened to a passage several times.

Then experimenters told participants what they thought
it sounded like and played the passage again. For each
passage, around 85% of participants heard the same message
the experimenter suggested, but more than 80% of those said
that they did not hear it until they were told what to listen for.

Once we are told what to expect, the message

is often very clear and it is nearly impossible to
reverse the effect - the sounds never seem random
or unclear again.
Even more common are reports of toys that say things that
toys should not say. Every year shocked parents call local
news stations, convinced that someone planted messages or
profanity in their childs talking toy. Sometimes the message
is obvious, but often the parents need to describe what
they heard before others can hear it. Almost always, any
unexpected message is completely unintentional, due to
imperfections in the toy.

What do you see?

try this:
Play a game of telephone. This is a game which requires a group of at least five people,
but twice that is better.

1. Choose an order for the players (first, second, third, etc.)

2. The first person in the chain must choose a sentence from any book
and should not share it with the group.

3. The first person will then whisper the sentence into the ear of the

second person once and only once. This is tricky; they must whisper
it loud enough for the second person to hear it, but soft enough that
nobody else hears it.

4. The second person will then whisper what they heard into the ear of
the third, and so on.

5. The last person in the chain must repeat what they heard out loud.
6. The first person will then read the sentence they chose and compare.
What happened? Did the sentence change? This game is usually played to demonstrate
how easily communication can break down and misinformation can be spread, but there
is more to learn from it. For example, if the sentence changed, was the gist the same?
Players usually try to repeat the sentence exactly as they heard it, so they tend to replace
any words they did not hear correctly with words that sound similar rather than those that
make sense. As a result, the outcome is often hilarious.

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

PSYCHIC ABILITY, AMAZING COINCIDENCE, OR PAREIDOLIA?

13

Psychic Ability, Amazing

Coincidence, or Pareidolia?
Rorschachs inkblots may not tell us much about your personality or
psychological health, but they are still useful. They are a type of ambiguous
figure - an image that can be perceived in more than one way. Another
type is one that artists create, like the famous reversible image that could
be either a vase or two faces, but not both at the same time.

Figure 9: Reversible vase/face image

Psychologists use
ambiguous figures
to study perception
and other behavior.
Research shows that
priming, which
involves calling
attention to a word or
concept, can aff ect how
people interpret these
figures. For example, if
you spend time looking
through your cupboards
for something to put
flowers in, and then
look at the vase/two
faces image for the
first time, you are more
likely to see a vase
first. If , however, you
have been watching a
lot of romance movies,
the faces may be more
apparent.

Priming is actually a form of suggestion; it creates an expectation of sorts.

It can come from someone else or from your own thoughts, but it always
makes it easier to see or hear something meaningful in ambiguous images
or sounds.
Mentalists, magicians, and psychics have taken advantage of this tendency when they
perform what look like impossible feats of mind reading. For example, in the early 1970s,
a man named Uri Geller convinced jour nalist Barbara Walters that, among other things,
he had read her mind when she concentrated on a drawing that she had placed in a
sealed envelope long before his arrival in the studio that day. She was stunned by how
similar his drawing seemed to the one she had kept hidden.

14

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

PSYCHIC ABILITY, AMAZING COINCIDENCE, OR PAREIDOLIA?

DID GELLER USE PSYCHIC POWER?

James Randi recreated the stunt for Walters on a later show, but he did not
claim to read her mind. Instead, he used what he called an old magicians
trick. These require, among other things, some acting skill, but not psychic
energy.
Randi says that there are a number of ways that magicians perform this trick, including using
mirrors hidden in the magicians hands to get a glimpse of what the subject is drawing (which is
not what he or Geller did in this case). Regardless of the method used, convincing the subject that
a crude drawing is an accurate recreation, and the result of psychic energy, can be helped along
by pareidolia, priming, and suggestion.
As Geller was drawing, he listed a number of possible things the drawing could represent, from
churches to mountains to people. He also noted that it was shaped like the letter M. He threw out
guesses until Walters revealed that the drawing was of two people, at which point he stopped
adding details to his drawing. He didnt need to draw or say more; she was already convinced that
he had read her mind.
When Randi repeated the trick for Walters, he waited until she had revealed her drawing (a house,
sun, and person). He then apologized for being a bad artist and showed his own drawing. It was a
close match, but not exact. Randi had gotten a quick glimpse of her drawing (by means he wont
reveal!), but did not copy it exactly so that she would not suspect that he had peeked.

Figure 10: James Randi reveals his copy of Barbara Walters drawing

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

PSYCHIC ABILITY, AMAZING COINCIDENCE, OR PAREIDOLIA?
N e i t h e r R a n d i n o r G e l l e r n e e d e d t o d raw
d e t a i l e d c o p i e s . B y l e a d i n g, p r i m i n g, o r
s u gge s t i n g, t h e s e s h ow m e n we re a bl e
t o c o nv i n c e Wa l t e r s by d raw i n g l i t t l e
m o re t h a n b a s i c s h a p e s . T h e c o n n e c t i o n s
s u gge s t e d by G e l l e r a n d R a n d i f e l t
r i g h t t o h e r b e c a u s e o f b o t h p a re i d o l i a
a n d a re l a t e d h u m a n t e n d e n c y cal l ed
th e Fore r E ffect, ( s o m e t i m e s c a l l e d
t h e B a r nu m E f fe c t , a f t e r t h e wo rl d f a m o u s s h ow m a n a n d h u c k s t e r, P. T.
B a r n u m , wh o s a i d , We ve go t s o m e t h i n g
f o r eve r yo n e ) . I n 1 9 4 8 , p s y c h o l o g i s t
B e r t ra m Fo re r gave h i s s t u d e n t s a
p e r s o n a l i t y t e s t . T h e n h e p rov i d e d
e a c h w i t h a n i n d iv i d u a l p ro f i l e o f t h e i r
i n d iv i d u a l p e r s o n a l i t y. T h e s t u d e n t s
ra t e d t h e a c c u ra c y o f t h e d e s c r i p t i o n o n
a s c a l e o f z e ro t o f ive. T h e ave ra ge ra t i n g
wa s h i g h e r t h a n f o u r, ye t Fo re r h a d n o t
a c t u a l ly g ive n t h e s t u d e n t s i n d iv i d u a l
p ro f i l e s . A l l o f t h e s t u d e n t s go t t h e s a m e
d e s c r i p t i o n . I t i n c l u d e d s t a t e m e n t s l i ke
D i s c i p l i n e d a n d s e l f - c o n t ro l l e d o u t s i d e,
yo u t e n d t o b e wo r r i s o m e a n d i n s e c u re
i n s i d e a n d S e c u r i t y i s o n e o f yo u r
m a j o r go a l s i n l i f e . T h e s e s t a t e m e n t s
a p p ly t o a l m o s t eve r yo n e.

15

Like the personality profiles that Forer

used, a drawing is easily accepted if it
matches a single detail accurately or if
it is vague, only capturing basic shapes.
Circles can be seen as the sun or moon
over a mountain or house, but they could
also be the heads of stick figures. Gellers
mention of the letter M is similar to a
technique used by people who claim to talk
to the dead. They choose a letter like J or
M, which are common beginnings of names,
then watch how the audience responds
until someone makes a connection. M
is a particularly good choice because
mother is meaningful to every person on
the planet and parents with children are
typical subjects of childrens artwork. So,
whatever trickery they used, neither Geller
nor Randi needed a lot of information about
the pictures they were asked to copy. They
mostly needed to think on their f eet and
make well-timed suggestions.

Once the mind recognizes a pattern,

it seems obvious, clear, and difficult
to shake off, like the face of Lenin in
Phil Plaits shower curtain or satanic
messages in rock music.

What do you see?

3. Forer, B.R. (1949). The fallacy of personal validation: a classroom demonstration of gullibility. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 44, 112-123.

16

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

ACTIVITIES

try this:
HOW VAGUE CAN YOU BE?
1. Give one of the four photos below to a friend and ask them to rate the
accuracy of the following description on a scale of 1 to 10:
There is green in the distance, like trees or hills. There is a flat area,
which is brown or tan. There is also a curved line or arches.
2. Repeat this process using the other photos, but with different friends.
Do this with as many people as possible, and then calculate the average
score for each photo.
3. Were the ratings higher or lower than you expected? Were they very
different for each photo? If they were not different, why do you think
such different photos could fit the same description?
4. Create more descriptions like the one above for the same photos and
try it again.

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

ACTIVITIES

17

WHAT DO THESE LOOK LIKE TO YOU?

People have claimed to see familiar shapes in the following images. What do
they look like to you?

GoogleEarth

Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins

University Applied Physics Laboratory/
Carnegie Institution of Washington

Image courtesy of NASAimages.org

18

PAREIDOLIA: DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SEE?

GLOSSARY

glossary
Agent or Agency

Heuristic

A person, spirit, or other purposeful force

that causes something to appear or occur.

A rule of thumb that helps people to

quickly identify objects or sounds and to
make decisions.

Ambiguous Figure
An image that may be interpreted in more
than one way. Ambiguous ref ers to
information that is unclear.

Barnum Effect
See Forer Eff ect.

Forer Effect
A tendency for people to rate sets of
general statements as highly accurate for
them personally when such statements
apply to most people.

Ghost Box
A device that randomly samples radio
signals in small intervals. Some paranormal
investigators claim that the sampling
process is controlled by spirits to allow
them to communicate with the living.

Pareidolia
A tendency to perceive meaningful shapes
or messages in random or ambiguous
images or sounds.

Priming
Exposure to a concept or thought that
increases the likelihood that it or a similar
concept will come to mind in response to
a prompt. For example, if you are in the
market for a specific new car, you may
think that there are suddenly more of those
cars on the road than there were before
because you are more likely to notice them.

notes