D: It's time once again for our Moment of Science word of the Day. Today's word, please.
Y: Today's word is...
...Pareidolia!
D: Par...Pare . . .
Y: Pareidolia. It's a term from psychology that refers to the tendency in people to perceive a meaningful pattern in a vague stimulus.
D: A meaningful pattern in a vague stimulus...want to give me an example?
Y: Well, picture the moon. What do you see on it?
D: Oh, you mean the man in the moon? I see a face with one big goofy eye. You know, it's funny--there was a time when I was a kid and I couldn't see the face on the moon. My parents had to explain it to me. Now I can't ever look at the moon without seeing it.
Y: That's pareidolia. Psychologists note that once your brain has assigned a meaningful pattern to something, it holds onto that interpretation. But there's no face on the moon. East Indian people see a rabbit on the moon; Samoans say it's a woman weaving; Chinese people see a monkey pounding rice. Because of the previous assignment of a different meaningful pattern, it's as hard for a chinese person to see the face at first as for you to see the monkey.
D: No kiddin! I bet this kind of thing happens all the time, huh?
Y: All the time. Any time you see a person in a wallpaper stain, a ship in the clouds, or a face on Mars, you're experiencing pareidolia.
