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Cover of the 1865 edition of the German Language Psychiatric Journal in which the German word pareidolie was defined, perhaps for the first time, by Dr. Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum. An english translation of pareidolie as pareidolia is in an 1867 British psychiatric journal review of Dr. Kahlbaum's 1866 article.

Die verschiedenen Formen der Sinnesdelirien. Ein Beitrag zur Erweiterung der psychiatrischen Symptomatologie und zur psysiologischen Psychologie. by K. Kahlbaum. Centralblatt für die medicinischen Wissenschaften, No. 57, 23 December 1865. p. 908ff.
PAREIDOLIA - DR. KARL LUDWIG KAHLBAUM

When discussing the visual perception of objects that are not actually physically present, the word pareidolia, a term from Psychiatry, is another useful term which basically is a synonym for the concept imaginative illusion.

Although the word pareidolia was not introduced until the 1860's, the visual phenomena of pareidolia is as old as human perception. Seeing "The Man in the Moon" as a face or "The Big Dipper" as a dipper are but two examples. Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare, along with many others known for their extraordinary imaginations, wrote about the phenomena now defined by the word pareidolia. The American painter/writer Washington Allston, and many of Allston's associates also wrote about this phenomena and encouraged people to enjoy the experience as a sublime experience with Nature.

The word pareidolie was used, perhaps originally, by Dr. Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum in articles published in two German language Psychiatric journals, one in 18651 and the other in 1866.2 In 1867 pareidolie was translated into English as pareidolia in a British medical journal review of Dr. Kahlbaum’s 1866 article.3 The phenomena of pareidolia was discussed by Karl Jaspers in his now classic General Psychopathology,4. Originally published in German in 1913, Jaspers' General Psychopathology has been republished in many editions and languages. The term pareidolia remains in use in Psychiatry, and is now also in general use.

In the 1867 English review of Dr. Kahlbaum’s 1866 article, his definition of pareidolia was described as follows,
… there is necessary an external and individual object very nearly corresponding in character to the false perception, whose objective stimulus blends with the deficient subjective stimulus, and forms a single complete impression. This last is called by Dr. Kahlbaum, changing hallucination, partial hallucination, perception of secondary images, or pareidolia.6
Dr. Kahlbaum called the perception of a pareidolia a "false perception" because the object seen is not physically present, although the actual external object and the individual object known from experience both are "corresponding in character." For example, with The Big Dipper seen as a dipper, the "external" pattern of those seven stars and the "individual object" in the mind of the viewing individual known as a dipper from previous experience are "very nearly corresponding in character." With the example of the Moon's surface seen as a face, the "external" pattern of the surface of the moon and the "individual object" in the mind of the viewing individual, a face, are also "very nearly corresponding in character."

Current definitions of pareidolia sometimes do not state that pareidolia is a "false perception" or misperception but instead describe the object perceived as an object not physically present, by describing the object seen as "unreal" in the commonly used Newtonian sense. An "unreal" object could also be termed an "ideal" object. When we see "The Big Dipper" or "The Man on the Moon" that is not a "false perception" but a perception where the object we see is an "unreal" object. Seeing an "unreal" object because of an actual similarity of form between the external physical environment and an internal memory of the object is the essence of pareidolia. The concept is also applied to auditory perceptions, where a sound sequence is heard as something that it was not in physical reality. For example, one may hear spoken words, when the sound is actually just the wind.

Here is a definition of pareidolia from Campbell’s Psychiatric Dictionary,7 a current authoritative psychiatric resource, which is followed by my translation into less technical terminology.
A type of intense imagery that persists even when the subject looks at a real object in the external environment; image and percept exist side by side, but the image is usually recognized as unreal.
Here is my translation into simpler terms: Here is my less technical translation,

A type of intense [image from the mind's eye], that persists even when the subject looks at a real object in the external environment; [what is seen through conscious attention] and [the external visual stimulus] exist side by side, but [what is consciously seen from the mind’s eye] is usually recognized as [something not really physically present].

Here is how a pareidolic image occurs. The process begins with a pattern in the material being perceived, that somehow objectively corresponds to something that is actually not physically present, but which exists as a memory in the viewer’s brain. The effect occurs when the brain associates the pattern in the viewed material, with the memory of that corresponding object stored in the brain. The pattern is seen as the recognized object, even though that object is not physically present. When you see "The Big Dipper" as a dipper you are seeing a pareidolia, since the dipper is actually unreal.

Here is the same description from a data processing perspective. Your eyes scan where you are looking and your brain’s unconscious pattern recognition processing codes the objective visual characteristics. The brains processing then searches for the best match of the coded characteristics within the database of coded images stored from your previous experience. The image displays as the matched remembered object when the scanned objective characteristics are matched with characteristics of the stored memory and you consciously focus on that object.

When you see what you are looking at as the remembered object, even though that object is actually not physically present, that is a pareidolia. It is illusion, but not hallucination, because the perception is based on objective corresponding characteristics from the external physical reality. When you watch a movie, it is illusion, but not hallucination.

PAREIDOLIA PROCESS HAS THREE REQUISITE COMPONENTS
Here is Dr. Kahlbaum’s description separated into his three necessary components,
… there is necessary
  1. an external object
  2. and an individual object
  3. very nearly corresponding in character to the false perception, whose objective stimulus blends with the deficient subjective stimulus, and forms a single complete impression.
Here is the same list rewritten with my words. I also change "false perception" to "the remembered object is not physically present."
  1. There is an external object in the line of sight.
  2. There is an internal object stored in the viewer’s memory.
  3. There are objective correlatives8 existing in the external material being viewed that correspond to characteristics of the individual's internally stored memory of an object previously experienced, such that the visual characteristics of the external objective object blends with the remembered internal subjective object and the material is seen as the remembered object, even though the remembered object is not physically present.
Pareidolia involves no abnormalities or mental disorders. The steps listed above are exactly the same as normal visual perception except for the one point—-the object seen does not exist as a physical object even though the perception was initiated by the objective correlatives that are physically present.

As an abstract pareidolic example, one might see a pareidolic face in the front of a car. The car is not at all ambiguous. All that might be necessary to see the image of a face, in addition to or instead of the car, could be two headlights (as the eyes), the grill (as the nose), and the bumper (as the mouth), but only if the viewer's unconscious brain processing makes the connection. A curved bumper (more like a smile) and an oval grill (more like a nose) might help to make those objects correlate better in the mind. If you can imagine this non-existent car as described and also imagine that you see the abstract face, you are imagining a pareidolia.

For pareidolia, the viewer does not have to see a vivid image and normally is not fooled by the image. Although it is perhaps most common for pareidolic images to be found in a vague or ambiguous stimulus, such as a cloud, a crashing water wave, or a weathered surface, pareidolia does not require vagueness or ambiguity, and even in those cases, does require, by definition, the existence of an objective similarity that the brain uses to make the connection between the material being viewed and the stored memory. Pareidolia is not defined by its degree of vividness, how real it looks, how abstract it is, but by the conditions listed.

Pareidolia, as I will use it in this presentation, will also include the perception of a physical object not actually present in the physical material context represented, which is perceived because of a similiarity of characteristics between what is objectively present and the characteristics used in the mind to recognize that form. I am adding "physical material context represented," in order to deal with reproductions. When we watch a video, the objects actually seen and represented from "the physical material context" of the video, I will not regard as pareidolia. This definition will allow me to apply "physical material context represented" to realistic paintings, movies, video calls, television, virtual reality simulations, etc. Thus, to use an extreme example, I would not call the perception of the cars in the Disney movie Cars as pareidolia, but would call the faces seen in those cars pareidolia. In a realistic painting representing Nature, I will not call the physical material objects existing in Nature, as represented in the painting, pareidolia, but would call a face seen in a cloud in such a painting a pareidolia.

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  1. Die verschiedenen Formen der Sinnesdelirien. Ein Beitrag zur Erweiterung der psychiatrischen Symptomatologie und zur psysiologischen Psychologie. by K. Kahlbaum. Centralblatt für die medicinischen Wissenschaften, No. 57, 23 December 1865. p. 908ff.

  2. Die Sinnesdelirien by Dr. Kahlbaum. Allgemeine Zeitschrift fürPsychiatrie und psychisch-gerichtliche Medicin, Volume 23. Berlin, 1866. p. 81. In German the word is pareidolie.

  3. On Delusions of the Senses review by John Sibbald, MD. The Journal of Mental Science, Volume 13, Number 26, July, 1867, p. 235 ff.

  4. Jaspers, Karl. General Psychopathology, Volume 1, 1997, p. 65ff.

  5. The term pareidolia has also been applied to sounds perceived, but I am only dealing with images.

  6. On Delusions of the Senses review by John Sibbald, MD. The Journal of Mental Science, Volume 13, Number 26, July, 1867, p. 238.

  7. Campbell, Robert J., MD. Campbell’s Psychiatric Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 480.

  8. Objective correlative is a term introduced by Washington Allston. More on this latter.


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    Copyright 1992-2015 Peter Bueschen
    The presentation is available at The Obtuse Bard website http://obtusebard.org.