Apophenia

Take a look at this:

What does this look like? Sure, it’s an electrical outlet, but do you see a shocked face?

Doesn’t it look like they want nothing to do with that impending plug?

This is a form of apophenia, the very human tendency to see patterns in things that aren’t really there. Apophenia shows up all over the place: you might see what looks like a predictable pattern in the throw of the craps dice in Vegas, or you might find a correlation between astrological signs and events in your own life.

Or, you might see faces everywhere.

This tendency is called pareidolia, from the ancient Greek para (beside) and eidōlon (shape). It isn't just a trick our minds play on us; it's deeply rooted in our survival instincts and evolutionary history.

From an evolutionary perspective, being able to quickly identify a face in our environment has been crucial to our survival as a species. Sometimes, your life depended on whether you could locate another human nearby.

Is it any wonder, then, that we so…