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| Do you see a face? |
It is hypothesized that the human brain has been hardwired to be able to recognize a human face at lighting speed as a protection mechanism to be able to quickly discern friend from foe. This has also translated into seeing images in random objects too.
You may recognize this famous image from Mars that early astronomers misinterpreted as evidence of life on Mars.
The Rorschach inkblot tests use this brain phenomenon to measure mental and emotional state. Well, sometimes this can be used in architecture too.
Sometimes on purpose...
And sometimes it is pretty obvious...
But sometimes it's not on purpose with really comical results...
So now that you know everything there is to know, let's get your pareidolia on!
What (or who) do you see when you look at this house?
As in all things, there is an opposite to pareidolia. It's called prosopagnosia, or "face blindness". People who suffer from this literally cannot distinguish faces, not even their own family. Famous sufferers of this include primatologist Jane Goodall and author/neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks. You may remember Dr. Sacks. He was portrayed by Robin Williams in the movie "Awakenings". And Markos Moulitsas, founder and publisher of Daily Kos (that explains a lot!)
I love the chicken church! :)
ReplyDeleteAs for the last one, that looks like Obama to me... just sayin'.
Have you ever looked a cloud formation and seen a ducky or a horsey or Abraham Lincoln?
ReplyDeleteThere's a good evolutionary reason for this. The last human that sees the tiger (face) in the grass (noise) is the one who gets eaten. The process is biased towards false alarms because there's little downside to a couple of mistakes if the alternative is being dinner.
This phenomena has found it's place in politics. For example, if you say "Hey! Isn't the climate getting really wacky just as Co2 is increasing?" and then have your pals in the media sort of arrange the grass into the shape of a tiger face you can influence a large number of ignorant people.
Awesome.
ReplyDeleteMien kampf ist dei Termiten!
K, True. And there is definitely a real ability to manipulate people if you understand how human perception and the human thought processes work. We are made to be suckers.
ReplyDeleteKoshcat, Your struggle is against the terminates? LOL! Nice.
Whenever I see the Sydney Opera house, I think of the cartoon depicting it as 3 turtles(in a compromising position). That's what I get for going to Architectural school.
ReplyDeleteThe face on Mars was one man(I don't think he was an astronomer)Richard Hogland. He is a really good speaker, but completely full of it. If any of the stuff he said was true, NASA would not have any money issues.
It shows another side to our nature, how easily the mind can be fooled.
Andrew - Isn't that chicken church hoot?! Don't tell Commander Max, but don't architects look at their work in 3-D? All I can think of this fried chicken chain in Texas called "Church's Chicken". At first I thought it was a new design for their franchises!
ReplyDeleteKoshcat - You got it! I wish they had a flag flying outside. It would have made it even more apparent.
ReplyDeleteK- It is a fascinating function of the brain. What is even more fascinating to me are the people with "face blindess". I first became aware when I saw a news magazine piece by Leslie Stahl. where she interviewed people including Dr. Sacks. They have to use other clues rather than facial features to distinguish people - hair cut, clothing, smell, and speech. It is particularly hard for youngsters in school. They can't recognize their friends in class out of context. There was one guy she interviewed that had a really hard time at work keeping his colleagues straight and when someone got a haircut, he had to start all over.
ReplyDelete"...there is definitely a real ability to manipulate people if you understand how human perception and the human thought processes work..."
ReplyDeleteAndrew and K - that is what advertising/marketing is all about - anipulating the brain to believe stuff.
***OFF TOPIC COMMENT***
ReplyDeleteOh, and does anyone else see that the chicken church photo bleeds over into the right column? I don't know how to make that stop doing that. I hate the new "blogger" photo upload!
***END OFF TOPIC COMMENT***
Bev, I have no issues with the chicken church photo bleeding. Perhaps it is a setting on your internet browser?
ReplyDeleteno chicken blood here either...
ReplyDelete"Church's Chicken" - yummm, Oh, the chicken church - not so yummy...
Sacks' book "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" has some amazing brain bending problems.
That last house doesn't look like a face to me...
[Thoughts on the filibuster?]
ReplyDeleterlaWTX - Here's a hint for the last house...
ReplyDeleteHint
Eewwww, "chicken bleeding church"...maybe this WAS on purpose!
rlaWTX - Loved the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" aspect of the filibuster. His issue was transparent and open to the public for scrutiny rather than hidden "procedural" shenanigans that can be used against Repubs for being obstructionist. I think Paul and the others who participated were making very good point and even Code Pink agrees (though I am not sure that is a plus).
ReplyDeleteWhen I look at that house, I see SpongeBobSquarePants. And he's winking.
ReplyDeleteEr, to be honest, I don't see anything in that last house. Maybe my brain is off-kilter.
ReplyDeleteYou jest about Mr. Moulitsas, but that doesn't surprise me. If you find it hard to identify individual people, that would make it easier to just think of humanity in the abstract, like liberals do. Or, more likely, he's a cowardly jerk independent of that. Come to think of it, forget I said anything.
Hey, WriterX Long time! Think more...1938 or so. Though I can see Spongbob too!
ReplyDeleteWriterX and T-Rav, I posted a link to a hint in one of my comments above if you are realy stumped.
T-Rav - Actually, I am NOT jesting about Moulitsas. He is listed as one of the "famous" people that suffers from 'face blindness'. ANd you are right, he is a jerk no matter what his brain perceives.
Code Pink are equal-opportunity protesters, so I don't think it hurts Paul in general. Hard to say how the RINO-hunters* will perceive it. I thought that it was good that he was able to stay on-message for the majority of the filibuster. Even NPR was giving him props for that today, noting there were no phone books or oyster recipes in his oration.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, it requires the cynicism of The Washington Post to assert that "Paul put the 'bust' in filibuster" for clocking in only the ninth longest filibuster in US history. WaPo's "In the Loop" blog pointedly credits only the seven longest filibusters. Now, I'm all for resurrecting the "Top 7" list as was popular in ancient in medieval times, but we live in a "Top 10" world, today. Somehow I imagine that even if Paul would have managed to pinch it off for another 2hrs. 15min., WaPo would only have interest then in the "Top 5."
*Republicans who actively seek to root-out impurities in the Republican party, often scourging good conservatives in the process.
Bev, It shouldn't do that and I don't seem to be able to fix it. I'm not sure why it's doing it (it's only doing it in IE, it's not doing it in Firefox).
ReplyDeleteEver since blogger changed the way they do pictures about a week ago, it's been a real pain to include images.
I've actually found it's best to upload the images separately in another blank article... manipulate them... then cut and past the code to the real article rather than trying to upload them directly. Otherwise you get blasted with tons of bad code.
tryanmax, Blogger reads differently in IE and Firefox (and probably Chrome). I use Firefox to set the site so it runs best in that and unfortunately there's no way to make them both run the same. But the picture shouldn't bleed over. The settings should have it within the boundaries on both browsers, but for some reason it's not within the boundaries on IE.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on Paul. If he'd run the longest filibuster, then they would have called it excessive or something.
Writer X, LOL! SpoungeBobLederhosen circa 1938. :)
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of houses, apparently China is working on a housing bubble that stands to make the US bubble look like a hiccup.
ReplyDeleteBut sometimes it's not on purpose with really
ReplyDeletecomical results...
Bev it is bleeding for me and this is what I see in the text. what is happening I assume is that the pictures are starting where the words end and in some browsers this appears tp move it too far to the right.
You could try to purposely parse the sentence so that always breaks givging more room to the right. for instance:
But sometimes it's
not on purpose with
really comical results...
If this does not fix the problem then you can load the pictures so that they are below and above the wording using the Enter key. the enter key appears as a character in the html code so the computer will space down above and below the picture. This is not an optimum solution as it means no side captions.
The work around to that is to create the document with the side caption so that it appears the way you want in Word. Use control Print screen to take a screen shot of your screen and the control v to paste it in Word. Crop the photo of your screen to include the side caption and your picture. Then expand it to the size that covers say 80% of the screen given on the blog.
Then you load the picture with the side caption as one picture below the last text and then use enter to start the new wording below that. It is a little bit of work but it solves the problem because the side caption is now part of your picture and generally it is the side captions that cause this bleeding. Up and down is generally not a problem so long as it is below an enter character signifying a new line.
Hope that is helpful.. I have not used the latest and greatest but these should work I think
PS If you take the cropped picture on word copy it and then open Paint. You can copy the picture as is to paint and then save it as a jpeg file to uplaod to blogger in case you did not already know that trick
ReplyDeleteIndi, The thing is, it's supposed to line the picture up and then wrap the text around the picture. That's happening in Firefox, but not IE for some reason. And it's only this picture that's off for some reason.
ReplyDeleteBlogger changed the way they do images about a week ago and it's been a real mess. When you try to change the size or location it freaks out and moves them to the top of the document and then it fills the document with bad code that interferes with the rest of the article.
Let me see if I can reload the image entirely.
Huh? That worked. The code is the same, but this time it worked. Strange.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Google is making changes in response to changes Microsoft is making to IE? It may be a case of Google trying to fix MS's problems and coming off like Republicans for the effort, LOL!
ReplyDeleteHmmmm. Yeah, I don't really see the Hitler similarity. I think it's the door. It's not really in the right place to pass for that mustache.
ReplyDeleteOn Paul's filibuster, I saw just now that Lindsey Graham (R-Metrosexual) got up and attacked it as an example of "paranoia" among libertarians. Jackass.
T-Rav - Did you at least see the chicken? :-)
ReplyDeleteI saw Graham (R/Idiot) and McCain (R/Idiot sidekick) do that. McCain "wasn't impressed". Well, he wouldn't know "impressed" if it came up and slapped in the face. Loser...
Andrew and Tryanmax - {I hate Google...} But I put that in brackets so they can't read it and have me droned by their good buddy Barack.
ReplyDeleteBev, Google doesn't drone people... they send them to live on a remote island: LINK
ReplyDeleteMcCain and Graham really need to go. They seem incapable of telling friend from foe.
ReplyDeleteOh boy! I sure hope somebody important in the GOP was listening to Rush today. Not because of something he said, but because of what a caller said. A self-described Democrat called in to very emotionally voice her support for Rand Paul. Her reason for doing so, in her words, is that he is the only politician standing up for civil liberties. She also claimed to know many other Democrats who feel the same as her.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, Breitbart just re-tweeted John Cusack asking "dems ? Do U have any thoughts on Obama's transition from a progressive academic humanist 2 a regressive corporate warlord?" and "where are democrats?"
While I don't think that John-boy will be voting Republican any time soon, what Rush's caller talked about is a potentially massive wedge that could and should be driven b/w Obama and as much of his base as possible.
Incidentally, in spite of his caller handing him a golden opportunity to do just that, and on a silver platter no less, Rush still managed to cock up the segment pretty well anyway.
tryanmax, That's the key to younger voters -- civil liberties. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit with the old guard GOP mentality, which believes in "order" -- which they define as pro-anything-military, pro-anything-anti-crime, pro-anything-big-business-wants, and anti-anything-that-makes-Jesus-weep.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I'm being facetious on the last point. I've read the Bible quite closely and I think Jesus was a much nicer, wiser person than a lot of political-Christians want to make him out to be.
ReplyDeleteI was going to say, I'm pretty sure Lindsey Graham makes Jesus weep.
ReplyDeleteBTW, when I'm with my friends, we refer to the fictitious, political Jesus as "Jebuz."
ReplyDeleteJebuz, LOL! Nice. I'm amazed how often I hear people say that Jesus stands for things that he expressly disclaims in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteLindsey Graham makes everyone weep, except Democrats.
So, how do we get Republicans to do this??
ReplyDeleteSee this article
Basically to shut up and follow the leadership. Oh, well, there you have it! I answered my own question. We HAVE no leadership...
Bev, Yeah... no leader. That's a problem.
ReplyDeleteAndrew - And when I say "leadership" I mean it's time for Graham and McCain to shut up and sit down. They are not our leadership anymore. Can we get them to switch parties? I'll pay for the going-away party! Or is that "go away" party?
ReplyDeleteBev, We could probably pay off the national debt with what conservatives would contribute to a go-away party for those two!
ReplyDeleteBev, I think there is a cultural barrier in the GOP, as well. Can you honestly imagine various pro-life or anti-gay marriage groups or even anti-tax groups agreeing to bite their tongues in exchange for mere input? I can't.
ReplyDeleteBUT, stories like this in the Politico should be fodder for Republicans to discredit Democrats' position on virtually any stance the latter take. Republicans should point to this as evidence of a dictatorship within the Democrat party and openly wondering what that means for America with them in charge. At the same time Republicans could take the converse stance and point out that if Obama can gather this kind of consensus within his party he should be able to do the same in Washington...if really he wanted to. When you take both positions like that--and stick to them both--you leave nowhere for the opposition to go. Any denial of one accusation only reinforces the other.
tryanmax, Agreed. This is the kind of opportunity Democrats would not pass up because they know that you don't need a killer blow to hurt the other side, you can kill people with the death of a thousand cuts too. Republicans keep waiting for the killer blow.
ReplyDeleteOn the first part of your response, no I can't imagine them remaining silent because they are on a fundamentally different mission than the rest of the party and a different mission than the left. The left wants their stuff put into law. They don't care how it happens just so they eventually get what they want. Our fringe isn't worried about the law, they see themselves as martyrs for the truth and they think the fight itself is mission, not the obtaining of victory.
FOX News is worthless. They just reported that Rand Paul filibustered b/c he wanted to know whether the president had the authority to issue drone strikes. Not true. He filibustered because he was concerned that the president would exceed his authority by issuing drone strikes. Grr!
ReplyDeletetryanmax - poor Fox News, it's not their fault that the AP story didn't make that clearer... :P
ReplyDeleteBev, if I squint I can see that face - sorta.
Andrew - I hate IE; yay Firefox.
Bev, GOP Leadership -sigh, that's becoming an oxymoron (emphasis on the last 2 syllables)
rlaTWX, I concur. I switched to Firefox from IE a couple years back and I'm not going back.
ReplyDeleteLOL! Very true on Fox News. They should change their name to "Fox Newsreader Services."
Andrew
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the changes but on reloading I have always had to reinsert the code where it needs to be but then again I edit the html and don't use the front end.
The issue is that it uses a program based on Word. Word will sometimes do this but what word does is to knock the picture and the text down to the next page. Evidently the html code is causing it to bleed over the edge. It has to do with where the computer thinks the end of the text is. If there is not enough space then it bleeds right.
Still if you can't get things to work the fixes I mention can be a work around.
Yes, Bev, I saw the chicken. Not much of a chicken, but whatevs.
ReplyDeleteT-Rav, You haven't lived 'til you've seen the chicken. ;)
ReplyDeleteIf the architects had been intentional about the chicken, I'm sure they would have built in some waffles, too.
ReplyDeleteBev:So, how do we get Republicans to do this??
ReplyDeleteBasically, IMO, this is just Obama minimizing the damage to the Democrats from their version of the anti-abortion lobby, gun control. They tell them to shut up and sit down and "we're all part of the same team" and then nothing will happen.
IOWs, the Republicans have done this to their constituency for years.
=Bush.
Tryanmax -At least the architect who designed the fish was actually going for a fish. As for the chicken church, the least they could have done is landscape with white azaleas or something so it would look like it was sitting on a bed of mashed potatoes...yummmm. Hey, the subliminal messaging in that would get people to come to church regularly too!
ReplyDelete