PAREIDOLIA, YES THAT WORD: Sarah Streamer and the perceptions of

PATTERNS IN THE PARANORMAL

AND HOW TO AVOID THEM…..

Patterns are all around us, they find us in daily life, and our brains are programmed to recognize and interpret them. Apophenia or patternicity is a part of the psychological software that every human is equipped with. We evolved this pattern recognition to interpret danger cues to help us survive as a species. In the past, this was an effective way to identify which foods were safe or when a dangerous situation could cause harm, like when a predator was hiding and waiting to attack. In our modern world, although there are times we need to recognize danger, there aren’t as many life and death situations that we need to worry about. This doesn’t stop our brains from seeing patterns in the randomness of life and this is a very common phenomenon among the paranormal community. A common form of patternicity in the paranormal world is pareidolia. This is a visual form patternicity that tells our brains to recognize faces where there aren’t any. We see this all the time in our daily lives, finding a face in the foam in our cup of coffee or when we look at wall outlets. This is how babies instinctively learn to recognize people as they are growing and has its place in our lives. There are times that our brains kick it into overdrive and cause self-deception, especially when we are in high stress situations, like being in the middle of a paranormal investigation in a haunted and creepy location.

Auditory apophenia is also a common phenomenon in the paranormal world. This is hearing something that is not really there. This happens often in review of electronic voice phenomena or EVP evidence. While there are often words that you can hear in these evidence reviews, there are also sounds that your brain picks out and assigns word meanings to. This is why the audio challenge of “Laurel or Yanny” went viral. Different brains interpret different things from the same sound. It’s especially easy to do with short, one-syllable words. Was that “you,” “new,” “two,” or “blue?” It gets even more difficult when the sounds are very faint and there is background noise.

A cheetah using its camouflage as disruptive coloration.

Photo Credit: https://owlcation.com/stem/Pareidolia-Explained These visual and auditory patterns that we recognize during our investigations and evidence review can cause issues for us and our research in the end. When investigating, we can identify ways to impact on how both visual and auditory pareidolia play a role in our investigation and evidence. An easy way to do this is to not fall into the group bias trap. This happens when someone in your group specifically identifies what they are seeing or hearing, and this provides bias to everyone in the group to unconsciously see or hear what the first member identified. An easy way to do this is to not specifically identify anything to your group until everyone has formed an opinion. Instead of saying, “I hear a male voice saying, ‘Come back here.’ What do you think?” you can say, “I hear something in this audio clip, what do you think it is?” If there are two or more of your group that can see or hear the same thing, there is a drastically lower chance that it’s your mind playing tricks on you. In addition to pareidolia and auditory apophenia, generalized apophenia can also sneak up on us. Sometimes we want something to work out the way we see it in our mind, so we begin to see patterns that support our idea. This confirmation bias can happen to the best of us. A great researcher will ask questions and look for answers during an investigation, this is a part of the scientific method, better known as “mess around and find out.” Confirmation bias happens when we test a hypothesis with the belief that it is true. We then look for the patterns or evidence that will prove our hypothesis and dismiss the evidence that disproves it.

As paranormal researchers and investigators, how do we avoid believing the patternicity and confirmation bias that we will surely encounter? These psychological phenomena will never go away, but we can take steps to make sure we are not blindly believing everything we see or hear. The following are some things that we can all do to while we’re investigating to combat confirmation bias: objectively: Gathering objective data is the best way to avoid bias.

Objective data points are those that do not take into account any personal issues or feelings. Objective data should be able to be reproduced by any person put in the same situations. • Ask others: Once you have formed and tested your hypothesis, run the results by others in the field that you trust. Having an accountability partner can be the best way to keep your own confirmation bias in check.

I have a challenge for anyone reading this article. Start looking for patterns and faces in your everyday life. When you find one, record it in a journal.

You’ll start to see that patternicity is a common part of life and is everywhere.

Now take that a step further and start recording the patterns you find in your investigations. Not all of them will be your brain playing tricks on you but being able to actively recognize these patterns will make you a better researcher and investigator.

I want to end this by saying that there aren’t always ways to explain away evidence. There are truly things we experience that are not normal, explainable or of this world. This is why we are so passionate about exploring the paranormal and haunted locations. I have experienced, seen and heard things that I can’t explain and after extensive debunking efforts, they can only be classified as paranormal. These are the moments we search for and are more meaningful when we can definitively say that we have done everything in our power to identify explainable causes to the evidence. Stay weird and ask great questions, the future of paranormal science is in your hands!

• Be a skeptic: A healthy amount of skepticism is a good thing! Healthy, intellectual skepticism can help us ask the right questions and explore the possibilities when investigating and reviewing Myself and Robert Gray discussing a piece of evidence. If you ask these questions and still come up audio evidence during an investigation at the Squirrel Cage Jail in Council Bluffs, Iowa. with a truly unexplainable experience or piece of evidence, you have taken steps to prevent a blind assumption. • Learn to identify bias: It can be easy to overlook your own ability to have confirmation bias when your beliefs are being questioned, even if it’s by you. Identifying what confirmation bias is and being able to recognize it in your own thought patterns can help you go into a situation without bias. • Form a valid hypothesis: As researchers or investigators, we need to be able to identify and test a hypothesis by gathering evidence.

A hypothesis can be something as simple as, “I believe this location is haunted.” Once the hypothesis is identified, stick to it! Sarah Streamer X