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Tea Stain Art and Understanding Pareidolia
A visual perception of pattern.
Have you ever stared at a patterned tile or a wood floor and suddenly you see an image? Have you ever looked at a wall socket and two eyes and a mouth look back at you? No, you’re not losing your mind, you’re just experiencing a phenomenon called pareidolia.
What is Pareidolia?
In the Collins dictionary, pareidolia is defined as, ‘the imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not actually exist.’
The word pareidolia originated in Greece.
Para means beside or beyond and;
Eidolon means form or image.
It’s How Our Brains Are Wired
My cousin often spent summers with us. We would lie on the grass after lunch and watch the clouds roll by. Sometimes they carried a dragon on their back, or a car would blow across the sky. Our imaginations ran wild.
To see faces or objects in random places was once considered a form of psychosis, but with more recent studies scientists recognize this as a normal part of our nature. The human brain is designed (wired) to recognize pattern, shape, and most often faces. Interestingly women are more prone to recognize faces in random places than men.
