Pareidolia and neurology

[nerdsforprez]

Hey everyone – I’ve been looking through the site and found a high number of postings related to pareidolia – for obvious reasons.  I found this interesting given that it is something I frequently deal with in my career, just in different ways. 

 

Pareidolia arises from a complex mix of psychological but also neurological factors.  I won’t go into details of the psychological factors (there are many, perhaps a different post?) but a cursory mention of top-down-processing and suggestibility factors is warranted.  Although admittedly this falls within perhaps a “softer science” there are reliable and valid personality inventories and questionnaires that objectively measure these factors to some degree.    

 

But perhaps more importantly, in the spirit of consilience, there is harder, more biologically driven evidence that helps explain the phenomenon of pareidolia.  I help run a neuropsychology evaluation service in a busy metropolitan hospital.  One of the more common patient demographics we see is the elderly, typically with concerns of some form of dementia.  In one form of dementia, dementia from what is called Lewy-body disease (LBD- abnormal deposits of a protein called alpha-synuclein in the brain) a hallmark sign is visual hallucinations (VH), usually well-formed, with colors and even frequently three dimensional.  Although VH are frequent in many psychological disorders, in this form of dementia they are notable because they reflect not a psychological demise as much as neurological (biology) one.  Such happen in individuals with no psychological history whatsoever (prior to the onset of their disease), and are correlated with LBD in visual cortex and other areas of the brain used for processing of visual information (found in post-mortem studies).  In fact, kinda a novel but brilliant advance in the field are pareidolia tests that try to illicit VH from varying degrees of neural stimuli.  Perhaps the most well-known is called the noise pareidolia test

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154713

 

This test is frequently used to evaluate for dementia thought to be caused by LBD.  Really interesting test.  I will not publish it here, but it can be found (public domain).  Essentially what it is - is a series of pictures with varying degrees of unstructured, neutral visual information pitted against pictures with structured, non-neutral information (identifiable images). Respondents have to not only correctly identify the real images but also not be duped by the foils.  Studies have been fairly consistent in that patients with LBD correctly identify the real images on par with others, but incorrectly “see” something in the foils.  As mentioned, such findings correlate with LBD is visual and associated brain cortices.  Functional neuroimaging studies also show the same response pattern on noise pareidolia tests is correlated with hypoperfusion (in living subjects) in the same cortical areas.  As a reminder, these findings occur in individuals with no known mental health history prior to the onset of their disease. 

 

No, I don’t post any of this to suggest that those who fall prey to pareidolia effects (all of us fall for it at some point) have brain damage.  So, lets avoid any of those comments (in fact, after an intense day of shark tooth hunting I figurately see them EVERYWHERE).  But, I do think it is an interesting analog to what has been discussed already, and perhaps can add to the pareidolia literature and musings that have already been posted.  As all good scientists do, we shouldn’t be afraid or deny our biases; whether they be psychological or even neurological, but rather be open to embracing them and learning about them.  This allows for a degree of predictability and pattern-recognition, which ultimately will help us from being prey to the vicious jaws of pareidolia effects.    

 

TB 

[Mark Kmiecik]

I'm 91.3% sure that this is not a fossil, but posting a couple of photos including a linear scale would be helpful in its identification.

[jpc]

Interesting post, nerdsforprez....  

 

So what I am seeing in here is that t can be really difficult to unshow someone what they see, particularly if they suffer from LBD.  I wonder if LBD is seen in non-Altheimer's patients.  

 

[nerdsforprez]

9 minutes ago, jpc said:

Interesting post, nerdsforprez....  

 

So what I am seeing in here is that t can be really difficult to unshow someone what they see, particularly if they suffer from LBD.  I wonder if LBD is seen in non-Altheimer's patients.  

 

Yes.  True to science in general, though we like to think of Alzheimer's disease and dementia due to LB as separate entities, they are different pathologies but highly related and not as neatly separated as our textbooks tell us.   In reality, most AD patients have some LB disease, and vice-versa.  When there is a diagnosis of one over the other, it is a diagnosis of pathological predominance, not of exclusivity.  

 

In fact, in Parkinson disease, LB signs are often present, and vice-versa.  Parkinson patients can also have VH.... 

 

[nerdsforprez]

14 minutes ago, jpc said:

Interesting post, nerdsforprez....  

 

So what I am seeing in here .....

 

 

btw.... pun intended?  

[Mahnmut]

Hello nerdsforprez, and welcome to the forum.

I am a physician myself, and somewhat familiar with the topic as my father suffered from a dementia that was diagnosed (as far as possible without histological sampling) as levi-body type. In the end he had quite bizarre and detailed visual (pseudo-)hallucinations, often saw people and creatures in random patterns like woodgrain but was merely amused by them- in contrast to many dementia patients with far more emotionally troubling symptoms.

Interestingly, and somewhat more related to fossil hunting, he was always "good at pareidolia" (without any psychiatric problems before his late onset dementia).

There are quite a few roots, flint nodules etc. whose shapes he augmented with an added dolls eye here or some pencil lines there to make them obvious.

I can only emphasize again what often gets misunderstood, especially with the people who are convinced by their pseudofossils:

Pareidolia, although enhanced in some medical conditions, is a feature of the human mind, not a medical condition.

I just finished reading "Flowers for Algernon", and seeing nothing in a Rorschach-Test is one of the most unusual restrictions of the protagonist.

Not sure if this belongs in the fossil ID-Section (as Mark seems to question), but interesting topic nontheless.

Best regards,

J

 

[Fin Lover]

Is there a way to more gently approach/explain pareidolia to people on here? Many seem to take offense to the suggestion and we often end up with some degree of negative interaction, and a locked post.

[Ludwigia]

Maybe one of the mods or admins could gently nudge this topic over to General Discussion?

[jpc]

3 hours ago, nerdsforprez said:

 

btw.... pun intended?  

dangit... I wish I meant to be punny.  

[nerdsforprez]

2 hours ago, Mahnmut said:

Hello nerdsforprez, and welcome to the forum.

I am a physician myself, and somewhat familiar with the topic as my father suffered from a dementia that was diagnosed (as far as possible without histological sampling) as levi-body type. In the end he had quite bizarre and detailed visual (pseudo-)hallucinations, often saw people and creatures in random patterns like woodgrain but was merely amused by them- in contrast to many dementia patients with far more emotionally troubling symptoms.

Interestingly, and somewhat more related to fossil hunting, he was always "good at pareidolia" (without any psychiatric problems before his late onset dementia).

There are quite a few roots, flint nodules etc. whose shapes he augmented with an added dolls eye here or some pencil lines there to make them obvious.

I can only emphasize again what often gets misunderstood, especially with the people who are convinced by their pseudofossils:

Pareidolia, although enhanced in some medical conditions, is a feature of the human mind, not a medical condition.

I just finished reading "Flowers for Algernon", and seeing nothing in a Rorschach-Test is one of the most unusual restrictions of the protagonist.

Not sure if this belongs in the fossil ID-Section (as Mark seems to question), but interesting topic nontheless.

Best regards,

J

 

TY for your thoughts.  Very sorry to hear of your father.  Not a great condition to have.  I very much agree, pareidolia is a product of the human mind, and I will add, it happens to all of us.  In fact, we can vary where we fall on the continuum, within the same day.  As i mentioned in my post, after an intense day of shark tooth hunting I see teeth everywhere.  I don't think it is so much who is susceptible versus who is not to the experience   of pareidolia as much as it is a question of who is susceptible to falling for the effects of pareidolia.   Which are different things.  Not sure there is much we can do to avoid the former, but there is much we can do to avoid the latter.  That is why I feel it is important to discuss and perhaps even keep here in this section.  More about this in just a bit.  

1 hour ago, Fin Lover said:

Is there a way to more gently approach/explain pareidolia to people on here? Many seem to take offense to the suggestion and we often end up with some degree of negative interaction, and a locked post.

Because I am new I did not know this was an inflammatory topic.  But I guess it is!  However, in my brief search it seems to me the times it became inflammatory was when someone was presenting something that was called pareidolia, which in this context essentially means "you're seeing things" - which understandably might offend certain folks.  However, this topic isn't directed to anyone's find, so not sure how one can get offended.  Seems to be an innocuous topic - as long as it isn't directed at any certain person or their find.  Course, again, I am new, so I could be totally wrong.  

1 hour ago, Ludwigia said:

Maybe one of the mods or admins could gently nudge this topic over to General Discussion?

Obviously I am fine with any decision mods may make, or if the consensus is for it to move.  Just a thought though - in researching the topic the majority of threads that came up with "pareidolia" in the search bar yielded threads under this section.  Also, although the main focus of this section seems to be directed towards ID'ing a certain type of fossil the topic of ID'ing "is this a fossil in the first place" seems to come up often enough.  For diagnostic purposes you generally want to start with broad categories and whittle it down from there.  The broadest category for this section may very well be "is it a fossil in the first place" - in which case I would think this post would be appropriate to keep here. 

[FossilNerd]

13 minutes ago, nerdsforprez said:

However, this topic isn't directed to anyone's find, so not sure how one can get offended.  Seems to be an innocuous topic - as long as it isn't directed at any certain person or their find.  Course, again, I am new, so I could be totally wrong.  

Good read and it’s interesting to hear about the phenomenon from a person who deals with pareidolia on a professional level.
 

I think @Fin Lover was asking if you had any suggestions on gentler ways for us to let other folks know that we think they are suffering from a case of pareidolia. Not that your thread would be offensive, but that we often unintentionally offend those that we suggest are seeing things. 
 

We often try to explain that everyone has pareidolia from time to time, that it is a normal part of life,  and usually reference common things like “bunnies in clouds” or “the man in the moon” to drive home the point, but even that doesn’t go over well with a lot of people.  Very few people understand what we are trying to tell them. Many leave in a huff, or at worst the conversation degrades to the point that the topic must be locked. 

[Fin Lover]

Thanks @FossilNerd, that is what I was asking.  Sorry for the confusion @nerdsforprez, I should have explained better.  I'm trying to find a better way to respond when we get those people who get a little aggressive because we don't see the "petrified snake head" in their rock.  When pareidolia is mentioned as the reason they see those things, as you said, some people take offense to that.  How do we explain the phenomenon without it coming across as "you're seeing things"?  We try to point out that it's a natural thing that we all do, and how it was beneficial to have the ability to recognize patterns, but we often find ourselves on the same dead-end road over and over again.  If you search for pareidolia on the forum, I'm sure it will bring up a lot.  

[nerdsforprez]

9 minutes ago, Fin Lover said:

Sorry for the confusion @nerdsforprez, I should have explained better. 

 I think the confusion was on my end   I re-read your post and you were perfectly clear!

 

I read some things this afternoon, I wont pull them back up but from my memory I felt responses from members were great.  Very non-confrontational.  I think the main thing you want to do is what folks already do, and you already mentioned it - just normalize it and convey it is a "happens to the best of us" phenomenon.  

 

Unfortunately, because it is probably a deeper, more engrained characteristic with some individuals, no matter how flowery the language some folks will find a way to take offense.  Taking offense is actually related to a variety of psychological characteristics, but one I find interesting is concrete thinking versus abstract thinking.  Concrete thinkers have an especially hard time taking advice.  Even a harder time being corrected.  

 

With some folks unfortunately I think its a "I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you" type of thing.... 

Edited April 18 by nerdsforprez