Mind & EmotionGreek → English
Pareidolia
/ˌparɪˈdəʊlɪə/noun
The perception of a familiar shape, usually a face, in random or ambiguous visual or acoustic material.
The Greek roots
παρά
pará
beside, faulty
εἴδωλον
eídōlon
image, phantom
Literally: “image alongside”
The story of the word
The German psychiatrist Karl Kahlbaum used Pareidolie in 1866 for illusions that persist even after you know they are illusions, and the word reached English through translations of German psychiatry. Face detection is aggressive enough in the human brain that two dots and a line will trigger it, which is why plug sockets look startled. The εἴδωλον half is the same word behind idol, an image mistaken for the thing itself.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → German coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
idolkaleidoscopeparadoxparasite
In a sentence
The face on Mars was pareidolia plus a low-resolution camera.
Pareidolia is why we keep finding animals in the clouds.