Pareidolia vs Apophenia - What's the difference?
pareidolia | apophenia |
The tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the observer, such as interpreting marks on Mars as canals, seeing shapes in clouds, or hearing hidden messages in music.
* 1993 , Raymond Moody, with Paul Perry, Reunions: Visionary encounters with departed loved ones , page 13
* 2006 , Steve W. Martin, Heavy Hitter Selling: How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Persuade Customers to Buy ,
* 2010 , Rick Emmer, Loch Ness Monster: Fact Or Fiction? , page 81
As nouns the difference between pareidolia and apophenia
is that pareidolia is the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the observer, such as interpreting marks on Mars as canals, seeing shapes in clouds, or hearing hidden messages in music while apophenia is the perception of or belief in connectedness among unrelated phenomena.pareidolia
English
(wikipedia pareidolia)Noun
- Pareidolia underlies several forms of divination.
page 150,
- Pareidolias aren't solely limited to images. When I was a youngster, I remember listening to The Beatles' song "Strawberry Fields" over and over to hear what seemed to be "I buried Paul."
- The most famous example of pareidolia is the familiar face of the Man in the Moon.
References
*Pareidolias*
The Skeptic’s Dictionary*
The Word Spy----