I am just reading a BBC article about this years Ig Noble awards wherein they explain the research relating to the awarding of this year's neuroscience Ig Noble to a team from the University of Toronto for research into pareidolia.
Pareidolia is the well known--to everyone but me--phenomena whereby our brains to try and derive or create order out of disorder. One of the examples they cite is people seeing the face of Christ in the burn pattern on a slice of toast.
Other instances, some less well-known, which I think fall under this umbrella are:
- The Turin Shroud
- Shapes in murmurations
- Shapes in clouds
- The constellations and asterisms
- The face on Mars
- The Man in the Moon
- The Old Crone in the Moon
- The Rabbit in the Moon And, yes,
- The Black Cat in the Moon
- The Black Sheep in the Moon
