What is the commonly accepted mechanism that causes people to experience pareidolia?

Question

I often see cases of pareidolia reported in the news, on blogs, and even here. I think remember reading in Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan that this had an evolutionary origin (i.e. if you see a familiar object and it isn't there, that doesn't cost anything in survival, as opposed to NOT seeing an object that really IS there, like a lion about to eat you). However, when I do a google search, I don't find any actual evolutionary biologists talking about the origins of pareidolia, just people repeating this anecdote from Sagan.

I will admit, my google-fu is weak, but I would like to find out if there are actual papers and studies that can confirm or deny the origin of our species towards pareidolia. A common definition of pareidolia is:

a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse.

Does anyone have any scholarly documentation from an evolutionary biologist that speaks to the origin of pareidolia?

Answer 1

Type I errors (false positives), like pareidolia, can indeed be helpful to survival. Mistaking a stick for snake won't do you harm, but mistaking a snake for a stick could mean death.

Here is a talk Dylan Evans gave, titled "Born to Believe". He hypothesizes apophenia (pareidolia) might underlie our tendency to be religious.

And here is a short video where Richard Dawkins talks about B.F. Skinner's superstitious pigeons experiment:

All wild animals have to be kind of natural statisticians, looking for patterns in the apparent randomness of nature when they are looking for food or trying to avoid predators. There are two kinds of mistake they can make: they can either fail to detect pattern when there is some, or they can seem to detect pattern when there isn't any, and that's superstition.

Dylan Evans:

Natural selection has favoured a brain that tends towards type I errors rather than type II errors. It may be better to be superstitious than to miss genuine causal patterns that are there.

Also from Dylan Evans' talk (referencing one of Peter Brugger's studies):

• Believers in the paranormal are more likely than skeptics to see faces that aren't there

• Skeptics are more likely to miss real faces (type II error, false negative)

• L-dopa (dopamine) makes skeptics less skeptical

And sometimes, when a machine (e.g. computer, car, soda machine,...) doesn't work properly people talk to it, or curse/shout at it.

Dylan Evans:

On some level we all know that's silly. But that fact that we so readily do it suggests that even people who are clearly aware that these [machines] are not alive can't help but treat them as if they are, even if it's just as a joke. Which may be due to a more powerful force that underlies our original tendencies to attribute spirits to rivers, mountains and so on.

So while the origin of pareidolia/apophenia is not answered, this phemonenon might indeed be "hardwired" into our brain. I'm very interested in the answers of others on this subject.

On a more humorous note, here is David Mitchell and Robert Webb's answer to "religious pareidolia".

Answer 2

I do know of evolutionary biologists who have repeated this claim, e.g. Dawkins (in The God Delusion). But he could have repeated Sagan’s idea. The problem with these kinds of ideas is that they are very hard to test empirically.

Evolutionary stories like this go by the term of just-so story: they are very compelling, plausible, probably even true but we have no good way of telling.

Jerry Coyne occasionally talks about research suffering from this fallacy on his blog. For example, here’s his take on the genetic “rape kit” of ovulating women.

The difference between these two examples is of course that the latter has demonstrable weaknesses while the former, as I’ve mentioned, is very compelling. In another example, he talks about why sperm tastes bad – once again, the rationale is actually very compelling, makes sense from an evolutionary advantage point of view, and is probably even true. But there are no predictions that can be tested experimentally.

Unfortunately, a lot of the evolutionary psychology field currently falls into this category which has led a lot of people to conclude that the whole field is bunkum. But that’s throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Answer 3

This phenomenon is just the result of the Agent detection.

I asked two similar questions on cogsci.stackexchange which interested people might like to read:

Why-is-it-common-for-people-to-default-to-a-single-causal-source-to-explain-new

I think it is mostly a result of "hyperactive agency detection"; this results in "single-cause" reasoning as part of the search for an "agent".

Why-are-people-inclined-to-praise-or-fear-the-unknown

I remember Richard Dawkins mentioning the possible evolutionary benefit of belief in "The God Delusion". It could basically be a necessity for survival. Accepting things without questioning them is essential in life, especially when growing up. Where reasoning falls short, belief can triumph. Why people are inclined to want a explanation, is quite an interesting question! – Steven Jeuris♦ Feb 2 at 20:33

Wolpert argues that our wide range of beliefs, some of which are clearly false, grew out of a uniquely human trait. Alone in the animal world, humans understand cause and effect, and that, he says, led ultimately to the invention of tools, the rapid rise of sophisticated technology, and of course, beliefs. Even the earliest humans understood that many events that shaped their lives resulted from specific causes. Therefore, there must be a cause behind every event.

...

We want to believe there is a reason for it all, and that leaves us predisposed to believe in some things for which there is little or no evidence. If a certain belief makes sense out of an otherwise senseless event, then it must be true, right?

Answer 4

I don't like to give simple direct answers, mainly because I don't think I have enough certainty to do so, but also because I prefer to offer the data that I had analyzed and then see if the other person came up with a similar conclusion. I think the core of this tendency to anthropomorphize odd shapes of materials is grounded on the making of false-positive errors or "type I errors". But the problem seems to be to answer It is adaptative? In what context? I think Sir Michael Shermer explains it quite eloquently in this debate http://youtu.be/uy_3lAEFOW8 Also, the lucidity of Mr Robert Sapolsky on the magical thinking might be helpful too http://youtu.be/4WwAQqWUkpI In order to understand this subject of "evolution of pareidolia" we must consider the adaptative value of some behaviors, based of course on some interpretations of the world. This behavior it is not only driven/influenced by genetic information, there is a very important aspect we must also consider, which is: the role of culture. How culture benefits some behaviors? or How culture make some behaviors adaptative? There is an interesting theory which I think that will gave you a great insight into this question once you understand it. It is the "Dual inheritance theory". A definition that sums up what is meant by "culture" in DIT is: "Culture is information stored in individuals' brains that is capable of affecting behavior and that got there through social learning." For example, in humans the cultural adoptions of agriculture and dairying have, caused genetic selection for the traits to digest starch and lactose, respectively. About the documentation/references, as far as I know there isn't such "from an evolutionary biologist", I think you must ask it in other terms, regarding to the types of errors of cognition. Anyway, here's some: - Adapted from Stanovich et al. (2008).Stanovich & West (2008). On the failure of cognitive ability to predict myside bias and one-sided thinking biases. Thinking and Reasoning, 14: 129–167 - Adapted from Stanovich et al. (2010). - http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/haselton/webdocs/handbookevpsych.pdf - Richerson & Boyd (2005). Not By Genes Alone: How Culture Transformed Human Evolution. University of Chicago Press. http://www.amazon.com/Not-Genes-Alone-Transformed-Evolution/dp/0226712125 - Hull (2000). Science and selection: Essays on biological evolution and the philosophy of science. Cambridge University Press. http://www.amazon.com/Science-Selection-Biological-Evolution-Philosophy/dp/0521644054

I hope you find it useful.