http://mindhacks.com/2008/10/02/feeling-out-of-control-sparks-magical-thinking/ Neuroscience and psychology news and views. Fri, 17 May 2013 22:36:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://mindhacks.com/2008/10/02/feeling-out-of-control-sparks-magical-thinking/#comment-6342 Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:39:52 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/feeling-out-of-control-sparks-magical-thinking/#comment-6342 I’m a bit disturbed by the claim by these researchers that randomly generated patterns do not contain real images. Certainly such randomly generated images do not contain specific content created by the researchers, but they must realize that a randomly generated image of the type they are using of arbitrary size will actually contain the precise images that they are adding in. In other words, any image – even one that is arbitrarily complicated such as a page of text – can be created by a random image generator if it is run for a long enough period.
The “purely random” images that the researchers used actually contain a great deal of information, so it is not a surprise that a large number of people perceived partially obscured images in them.
Indeed, the images they were interpreting were not purposely added by the researchers and were not as clearly displayed as those that were, but to suggest that to see the chair in the above image is “real” and that the “monster” or whatever it appears to be in the second image is illusion is stretching it. Both images are illusion, as there is certainly no real chair there. Both are only images.
It would seem that what the researchers have discovered is that people make a greater effort to interpret difficult data when they are in a particular state of mind. It is unscientific of them to be making inferences about the reality of these people’s conclusions. This is stepping into the realm of philosophy.

]]> http://mindhacks.com/2008/10/02/feeling-out-of-control-sparks-magical-thinking/#comment-6341 Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:57:45 +0000 http://mindhacksblog.wordpress.com/2008/10/02/feeling-out-of-control-sparks-magical-thinking/#comment-6341 Wow, so glad I caught this post. I spent quite a while last fall (in the midst of applying to grad schools, actually) trying to find any studies of this phenomenon in non-pathological populations. I had rotten luck with “apophenia” and “pareidolia” (though I suppose the former should’ve turned up your paper) and I guess I didn’t come up with “illusory patterns” or “magical thinking”. I’m totally going to print these up and go read them in bed instead of studying for my midterm.
Thanks for posting this work, and keep up the great blogging.

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