Pareidolia: Is This A Commonly Used Device In Art?

We agree on one thing; You're right, I can't even afford to have a minute wasting time reading.

Could you say that in two sentences, so I may understand better.
Please and thank you.
I am sure there are others have lots of time in their hands will respond better.

Nothing ventured nothing gained!!

The artist Bev Doolittle comes to mind.

In a former life I had, doing what psychologists call projective tests, they used this a lot, although without a 3 dollar word like "Pareidolia". The underlying assumption of tests like the Rorschach is that people, presented with an ambiguous stimulus, will project something of themselves into what they see. The most well known version of this is the Rorschach Ink Blot test, where they actually ARE inkblots (carefully standardized for scoring purposes), but people see all sorts of things, depending on their personality dimensions. It seems to be a human tendency to attempt to capture meaning from things that are ambiguous and don't have explicit meaning. When it works in real life, it's an insight, but not everybody has the same insight into the same stimulus.

Bev Doolittle is amazing. I love her stuff.

Common enough that pareidolia has been mentioned 112 times in this forum over the last few years.

One more comment on my images for Pareidolia: One should enlarge them a bit first. They are sort of like Mandlebrots; the details are everything. If one stands back, all you will see is patterns and such. If you look more closely, you will see all sorts of things popping up.
My approach is sort of like mixing the outre' nature of the composite portraits by Arcimboldo, with the mirror image effect of a Ink-blot image. An interesting aspect of Nature is that of symmetry. Many living organisms display obvious symmetries. A fun little cartoon by Disney discusses the role of proportion and such in both nature and aesthetics and it is an old Donald Duck cartoon called "Donald in Mathemagic Land". I use it in some of my photography classes to illustrate the mathematics behind what humans consider to be beauty.
However, symmetries are not found in everything and that makes things that DO have elements of symmetry stand out. That tendency to stand out, coupled with our brain's use of symmetry to locate things like faces and shapes in our surroundings means that one can draw attention to things by creating symmetries that may not have even been there in reality, but are constructed in the image. Our brains, not knowing the source only the appearance, focus in on objects or elements with certain symmetries, especially bilateral symmetry as is found in faces, for instance, and then our brains try to superimpose our expectations on the actual image. This is how folks see the face of Elvis in a patch of mold on a wall.
Knowing all this, I use my technique to create these random, bilateral symmetries to promote the Pareidolian effect; that of seeing faces and things in visual patterns where there are no such patterns in reality.

Recommend you visit the image thread started by Kall3bu:

https://fineartamerica.com/showmessages.php?messageid=6721013&targetid=6799969#6799969

A lot of great images.

I think if you have to force a subject with a mirror image, it fails. This is also like the 3rd time that word popped up in the forum over the last month or two.

How often is it used? I see some faces but I don't look for them, and they don't look for me. I just know that if you mirror it, anything can look like a face, but I can't call it anything specific because it wasn't natural. Like a tree that may look like a face. I have storm clouds with faces sticking out. Though nothing posted because to most they will look like boring clouds. You see what you want to see.


----Mike Savad

Tony, very short:

Seeing familiar objects or patterns in otherwise random or unrelated objects or patterns.

Thanks Rudi
Short and to the point.
Now I understand!
:)

This is what I think about Pareidolia, as you say, it is a phenomenon. That being the case I don't understand how one sets out to create what is a phenomenon?

Painting faces is one thing, SEEING faces in a painting is the phenomenon as is creating something where the faces surprise you or others when not done deliberately could be considered the phenomenon. When you do it intentionally I don't think it's pareidolia.

There are many artists, especially surreal artists who use Pareidolia as part of their intended illusion.

Here's an example. No magic, mysticism nor supernatural power; just human instinct at play. The toying with the human psyche has been going on for many decades.

The shaman has been put out of business by the psychoanalyst, psychologist, psychiatrist and even the neurologist.

Here's an interesting article on how to teach AI to create images using Pareidolia.

https://towardsdatascience.com/pareidolia-teaching-art-to-ai-d78889406bd1

It's more like the brain filling in the dots. When we don't know what something is, we try to figure it out based based on what it "looks like". You can get all Freudian about what these things "mean", but it does seem as though humans have a special urge to see faces in things are not actually faces. Likewise human figures, genitalia, etc. It's very unromantic to think this, but it's probably something in our basic neurological wiring...object recognition, archetypes, etc. Artists try to decorate the figures, but what makes it resonate is that basic form. It's parallel to how a creature with big teeth looking at us is scary.

I don't think it's anything to do with shamans Drew, but I do think it's not pareidolia if it's intentional. At least by definition it's stated as a phenomenon. Once you set out to program a computer with AI then it's not a naturally occurring phenomenon, at least not in my mind or by it's definition. Call it painting hidden faces meant to be discovered.

In the following painting you will see numerous faces and creatures, none of which were intentionally painted, in fact the paint brush never touched the canvas.

Call it pareidolia or call it a phenomenon, I call it as something I painted which I can not explain how these images formed and transcend from painting to painting in a series of 17 drip paintings where the brush never touches the canvas. I call it realms of the unknown.

I didn't know what this was called, but I have it bad and so does my husband. We're constantly commenting on seeing animals and sometimes faces in clouds, rocks, trees, etc. In my case I think it comes from walking in fields and forests so often with a camera around my neck, always on the lookout during my hikes for animals to photograph. I see their shapes everywhere.

Coincidentally I was just going over some old images that needed some finishing touches before being uploaded and I found the one below. I see a person wearing a crown and sitting on a throne. So I named this one "The Queen of All Things". In this case I wasn't happy with the work until I duplicated and flipped it horizontally, creating this illusion.

Oh, Peggy ! That is 'spot on'........found, not designed, and so aptly titled, now!

Agree with Rudi :
"Seeing familiar objects or patterns in otherwise random or unrelated objects or patterns."
To add: also: unintended.


Here's one of mine. Some see 'her', others do not. Doesn't concern me very deeply, psychologically, that
she exists in my work.

Doug that's a very interesting explanation, but not one I buy. I see it as something much deeper than " basic neurological wiring". In my paintings I see the figures and activity as it was described in prophesy. Of course I will not elaborate further on this subject because I know it's not a permitted subject of discussion.

I am only stating it as it pertains to my 17 paintings series to accurately portray my art, I know no other way to describe it. Even pareidolia falls short to describe it.

I guess, the point of it, whatever term you use to describe it, is that WE supply the meaning, like the Virgin Mary in the tree bark. As humans, we can take a large context, draw out something small and then say it it's something specific, nested the the chaos. Human minds are very good at figure-ground relationships, finding something intelligible in a mess, whether right or wrong. Once somebody points it out, then it's easy for other people to see the same thing that they may have otherwise never seen. Not just that, but they will defend their perception. It can be shared knowledge or shared delusion, depending.....

Doug I'll guess that's exactly how you would explain away the ufo phenomenon. :-)

What do you see here Doug? This painting was made without any brush ever touching the canvas, it was random paint thrown on the canvas in no set pattern.

This photograph from the Grand Canyon was the starting point for several paintings.



This is one of them: Colorful Ghosts

 

It's common.



Protectors

We each bring our unique vision/imagination in interpreting what I describe as manifest imagery.

Some of my favorite memories are times spent outdoors with my grandmother, exchanging ideas of what the cloud shapes up above look like as they transform.

I enjoy teasing out manifest imagery on any textured surface — stone, wood, etc. — using acrylic paint.

Digital mode's also fun.

Here's another one of mine...I used to live in an area that was incredibly rocky and found this rock that seemed to have a face. So I created an Inukshuk.

Doug, your experience and your insight is spot on!
The attitude regarding Pareidolia typically falls into two camps. Those who perceive the concept in a rational manner and those who are enveloped in superstition.

The latter, are blinded by unfounded beliefs which are conflated into facts while the former accepts humans are subject to predispositions also called instinctive hard wired programming.

The emotionally dependent take comfort in a belief they are special and receive supernatural communications specifically aimed towards themselves and the rational see what the emotionally dependent see while acknowledging their perception is shared by many and it is simply a common experience shared amongst groups. Not special but part of the pre-programmed human psyche. A common cord harmoniously plucked by common heredity.

Enjoy the music but don't fall under the Pied Piper's spell.

BTW Cathy, Bev Doolittle's masterpieces are excellent examples of an artist intentionally using Pareidolia in their craft. Thanks for sharing!


Have a good day, FAA!

Here's my example. As the title suggests, you see from what ever frame of mind you're currently in....

The word paraidolism or whatever it is has an interesting element to it for sure. I use the term "artifacts" because they show up in my paintings, but I'm not sure if I like the artifacts much.

An embarrassing event: One time I was commissioned to create a background for a stage at a religious school that was doing a play. The scene was a small church surrounded by mountains. Fast forwarding to the end of the play, only some young men stood up to applaud, and I was confused.

Years later my son told me that the mountains formed a naked woman's body, the path to the church was her legs and the small church formed her crotch. The audience was not impressed with my art.

Here is another example of an artifact showing in my work that appears to be a nude, but was simply intended to be a leaf.

 

A fun outcome of pareidolia I experienced with an abstract glass design I had displayed in my gallery window.

A patron dropped by, exclaimed "I'll take that piece with the duck landing on water in it!"

I had to carefully take the cues on her focus as she gazed toward the pieces displayed.

Sure enough, I then saw it too. Hadn't deliberately designed it that way, just happenstance.

"Those who perceive the concept in a rational manner and those who are enveloped in superstition. "

Any time you don't think that human brains and perception are still a work in progress, just look at this whole projection or pareidolia thing. It's tree bark, not the Virgin Mary. We see stuff because we have an instinct that wants to recognize the camouflaged predatory cat in the midst of the dappled shadows. Sometimes it's right, sometimes it's just our brain trying to make up for not understanding what it sees, so we project things we're familiar with (like the scary leopard) and hopefully err on the side of caution.

"Doug I'll guess that's exactly how you would explain away the ufo phenomenon. :-) "

Prior to the recent century, nobody mentioned a UFO when they saw something in the sky. It was an angel, a chariot of God or whatever. I don't claim to know what they are or what cognitive-perceptual phenomenon they represent, but it stretches my gullibility to think that ETs, wherever they come from, come all this way to do a cornfield fly-over in Kansas. Like ghosts, I really, really, really would like to have the experience, but so far, ET has not buzzed my neighborhood. That's my problem with all that. Why don't they appear to skeptics? I'm not exactly a non-believer as much as a guy who's been waiting to have the experience, but so far, no UFOs, no ghosts, etc.

Be careful what you wish for Doug, you might experience a double whammy like a sighting and an abduction. There are so many credible documented cases of UFOs these days and supporting evidence that being a skeptic is not even an option anymore. :-)

Pareidolia seem to bring out the best ... or is it that they simply have more to do with reality than we have yet to understand? Whatever the case, it seems it ruffles feather in 'all' the possible camps of thought.

Emotionally challenged or not, and not nearly as superstitious as I might need to be, I enjoy my participation with these 'suggestions'... They go along well with my dwelling on Intuition and Imagination as most important properties of human experience.

Prospecting with Subjectivity, from my experience, is not only entertaining, it is deeply enriching... Is it all 'shareable' with my neighbors? Probably not. But it beats relying on the common day influencer's marginalized opinions about things beyond their grasp. Purposive Ambiguity moves most people through their day - even if it is not recognized, collectivized or dogmatized.

Going onto the limb: Pareidolia are as necessary as Intuition.

I absolutely love it when I find faces in nature such as the face in this little bluebird's behind.

Here's another one of mine provided by Mother Nature...



I think Doug's previous statement, "We see stuff because we have an instinct that wants to recognize the camouflaged predatory cat in the midst of the dappled shadow" is bang on the money. We are wired to recognize potential harm coming our way. But maybe it's also a deep-seated need to find a deeper meaning to otherwise meaningless shapes?

"Be careful what you wish for Doug, you might experience a double whammy like a sighting and an abduction. There are so many credible documented cases of UFOs these days and supporting evidence that being a skeptic is not even an option anymore. :-)"

Skepticism is not just an option, but for me, it's a life style. If I'm skeptical about ET sightings, I'm even more skeptical about so-called abductions. As long as I've been skeptical, if it drew attention from the aliens, I'd have been abducted long ago.

Much of the ET stuff has been experienced by people long before we had that particular name for it. In previous centuries, however, it came under the rubric of religious, spiritual or demonic experiences. They all have in common that they are not either provable or unprovable. Hard evidence that isn't explained in other ways is rare and and when it does exist, the evidence only points to the fact that there's no explanation, but believers add to that sentence by saying that there's no explanation other than _______ (fill in the blank here). Lack of an explanation isn't proof of anything.

I've had a life long interest in all this stuff, but so far, I keep being disappointed. I did, however, enjoy the old X Files TV show.

"Lack of an explanation isn't proof of anything."

This statement I can agree with. :-)

Peggy Collins, as usual, asks a most interesting question: "...But maybe it's also a deep-seated need to find a deeper meaning to otherwise meaningless shapes?" And it reminds me how it feels when painting... and as well how it feels to approach a formation of shapes and shadows in the woods - with a camera - that seem to be begging to be photographed!

And most anything that comes to mind for that matter!
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/eyes-of-ambiguity-terrance-depietro.html

I love finding things in otherwise 'ambiguous form'...

Peggy Collins, as usual, asks a most interesting question: "...But maybe it's also a deep-seated need to find a deeper meaning to otherwise meaningless shapes?"

The need to make order out of (seemingly) chaos?

L A, perhaps '...to make order out of (seemingly) chaos...' is one type of need and perhaps 'possibilities' in themselves are another type of need. In other words perhaps a non-'scientific' purposiveness is actually pulling the strings (metaphorical speaking of course).

That is why I am less inclined to dismiss the suggestability that comes along with these occurrences. We have much yet to identify of natural process before we throw its stuff out. In any event I enjoy the ambiguity that consciousness develops along with its 'seeming' reality!

"Pareidolia seem to bring out the best ... or is it that they simply have more to do with reality than we have yet to understand?"

Possibly. Understanding aspects of reality that can be expanded fuels knowledge. Limits are lessened and boundaries are expanded.

Curiosity opens closed doors both in the mind and in the physical world.

Pareidolia as an artist's tool of communication can open those doors in the mind. Used with intent, Pareidolia reveals those instinctive behaviors artists hope to convey through their creative endeavors.

People are inclined to see faces in everything. I have a red maple tree outside my window that looks like it has an eye where a branch used to be. I see faces in the patterns in my shower curtain, lol.

It's akin to people expecting their life story to make sense. That things "happen for a reason". That's BS, of course. Things just happen. Terrible things happen to good people for no reason. Evil people prosper. Talent languishes while hacks and hucksters succeed. Life is not fair. Etc., etc.

"You're rum creatures, you humans" - Bree the Horse, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Horse and His Boy.

If nothing else these unexpected curiosities are catalyst that sharpen imagination...; "...aspects of reality that can be expanded fuels knowledge..." And knowledge requires certainty... In my formation imagination stems from intuition - which is as difficult to defend as these curious occasions of perception. Coming across this tree was both curious and catalyst - and has not stopped to expand its limits. Where next will they bring mind?

I love it when I find things that appear to be faces or creatures of some kind in an ordinary setting. The woods with all the shadows and light on the trees are a great place for this to occur!

I saw a lot of caped/hooded people here:



Which became this:

"Once somebody points it out, then it's easy for other people to see the same thing that they may have otherwise never seen."

The power of suggestion In art; a title can lead a viewer in a specify direction or even misdirection.

Psychological manipulation based on the inherent nature of human Pareidolia works in marketing, propaganda, and and in general, a group's belief systems.

Understanding magic and understanding there is no magic.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01508/full

And yet: '...there is the possibility of better understanding wonder itself. Are different types of wonder created by different kinds of tricks?... Is the sense of wonder created by an apparently inexplicable event comparable to that created by viewing a beautiful natural vista? All of these are interesting and important directions for future research....'

I am reminded of the long and intimate enthusiasm that was shared by the most knowledgeable of the era when The Eleusinian Mysteries - the Feminine Mysteries, as they were known - were held as desirable to experience! [Interestingly on a personal note, the first book I was given, in my artistic re-education, was 'The History of Magic" by Kurt Seligmann (a Modern painter among other things); it was very useful information as it turned out.]

Nice article and reminder in the marvels yet to be uncovered... of mind, and perception and intuition as well... thank you

edit - The image below is very much in context with the thread in that all the particular subjects where recognized in the exact position that they are presented. They were perceived in the under-painting which was a spontaneous wash of uneven color. What is presented is merely a loose rendering of the 'suggested forms' yet the image reads as if it were a story within itself... Mythic is someways.

"Nice article and reminder in the marvels yet to be uncovered... of mind, and perception and intuition as well... thank you"

You are welcome!
Just finished the article. Magic as a performing art was an early interest. Very few tricks were beyond comprehension during this period.
Even if armchair psychology is applied in an artist's creations, the effort to connect is respectable. The more an artist understands psychology the better the connection with the viewers and the larger set of viewers who comprehend the intent of the artist is an indication the artist understands psychology.

Clouds, often think, bring this on.

"I think it is a very interesting discussion"
Agreed!

Here is an interesting article some may fine relevant.
https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/articles/how-subliminal-images-impact-your-brain-and-behavior-344858

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