Comments for Inoculated Against Illusion: Skeptics and Face-Pareidolia at http://www.randi.org/site , comment 1 to 8 out of 8 comments http://www.randi.org/site Fri, 24 May 2013 02:08:05 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1910-innoculated-against-illusion-skeptics-and-face-pareidolia.html#comment-26123 What do you mean you had two "false alarms" and two "misses"? You mean you thought both of the face pictures were non-face pictures and both of the non-face pictures were face pictures? Are you sure you read it correctly when it said the face pictures were on the top and the non-face pictures were on the bottom? - TharosTheDragon Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:49:00 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1910-innoculated-against-illusion-skeptics-and-face-pareidolia.html#comment-26122 Yes, the finding that people who hold religious & paranormal beliefs have a greater tendency to see faces than skeptics is interesting. I wonder if the research were extended to seeing other things that aren't there -- not just faces. Is this indicative of a tendency to add meanings or draw conclusions that aren't really warranted? That's what the research ought to aim at investigating IMO. I should note that with the four sample photos I had two "false alarms" and two "misses." I don't know what it means... maybe I need new glasses? Thanks, Tharos. - CNS100 Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:10:15 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1910-innoculated-against-illusion-skeptics-and-face-pareidolia.html#comment-26121 Yeah, you do have a point. It seems totally arbitrary. The test is to see if the participants see faces in the pictures that the testers have arbitrarily decided are face pictures. I don't see how there could be any empirical way of determining if a picture should be counted as a face picture or not. All the same, it still means something that certain groups see more faces than other groups. They may as well have just left out the pre-labeling. I don't see why the testers needed to say that some pictures were face pictures while others weren't. - TharosTheDragon Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:45:38 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1910-innoculated-against-illusion-skeptics-and-face-pareidolia.html#comment-26120 What is a "hit" in this experiment? There's never a face. All positives must be false alarms. I'm a skeptic, but I've never met anyone else who approaches my ability to see shapes in cloud formations. - CNS100 Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:21:57 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1910-innoculated-against-illusion-skeptics-and-face-pareidolia.html#comment-26118 Interesting. i can find faces in all four images, although they are a bit more clear in the first row. I'm pretty sure I would score high in your 'test of skepticism'. I think it would be more insightful to see how people score in terms of creativity--i think that is far more important than degree of skepticism. One can be skeptical and still have a good imagination! - Stanfr Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:29:48 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1910-innoculated-against-illusion-skeptics-and-face-pareidolia.html#comment-26117 I think I'm missing the point of this article. I can often see a face where there is none - any time there are three dirty marks on a wall it looks like a face - but I don't assume it's Jesus or Old Father Time. We did have one wall that started looking like Mother Theresa; never have I cleaned up so fast! - rosie Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:07:53 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1910-innoculated-against-illusion-skeptics-and-face-pareidolia.html#comment-26113 Dude, it's not a contest about who can see the fewest faces. The instructions are to click on the face if you can perceive one. You could clearly perceive the face in the tree, but then you decided there wasn't one there because there's no pupils and whatnot. You're being disingenuous. - TharosTheDragon Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:24:40 +0100 http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1910-innoculated-against-illusion-skeptics-and-face-pareidolia.html#comment-26110 Weird, I tend to do horribly at experiencing pareidolia. Most of the time, I *REALLY* have to work at seeing what others see. In the images above, I didn't detect a face. I paused briefly on the first tree, that was it. Meanwhile, I ALWAYS saw through fellow soldiers camouflage in the military. Even when nobody else did. Perception is always an interesting thing to study. I personally tend to see eyes that are looking at me, as with the first tree, the darker recesses triggered an initial closer look, no iris, no pupil, no white, no reflection, not eyes, not a face. All within a fraction of a second. - Wzrd1 Thu, 08 Nov 2012 08:11:16 +0100