If you’re one of those people that sees faces in inanimate objects then you might not know it but you’re suffering from Pareidolia.
I say suffering because some would say it only affects those with neurotic tendencies. “Neurotic people tend to be less emotionally stable than others, and this, too, may make them tend to see meaningful patterns that aren’t actually there. Likewise, certain moods may increase the tendency to see such patterns” says Norimichi Kitagawa of the NNT Communication Science Laboratory in Tokyo.
But fear not, neurotic or not you are not alone if you can relate to this as it’s a wide reaching phenomena.
On Instagram alone there are 402,648 posts tagged with #iseefaces and that’s not including the many other derivative tags including #facesinplaces (95,926 posts), #facesinthings (36,667 posts) and many more. It also occasionally makes headline news like the time everyone on social media was sharing the house that looked like Hitler or the house that looked like Alan Carr.
But surely this is just part of the human condition? Are we not hard-wired with anthropomorphic tendencies? Is it down to some kind of primeval survival instinct to recognise faces in the dark ages to distinguish what’s a friend and what’s a foe. Or is it just we’re all a bit daft and like to point and laugh at things that aren’t really there?
If you’re looking for answers then I am not the man for you as I see faces all the time and have contributed many to the Instagram #iseefaces hashtag. So whether that makes me neurotic, over imaginative, weird or just primeval in my thinking… here’s eight of my faves on sale on Alamy:
Are you in the I see faces group? Let us know if you’ve got any favourites on Alamy.