This act of “really looking” is deceptive. It requires an almost “unlooking” to see closely, a kind of defocusing. Because: We tend to see in groups, not details. We scan an image or scene for the gist, but miss a richness of particulars. I suspect this has only gotten worse in recent years as our Daily Processed Information density has increased, ... See more

In my opinion, this noticing/embellishing “trick” is not only learnable but innate. Pareidolia is pre-installed in every human brain, most likely as an evolutionary advantage – without it, we wouldn’t have constellations, the Man in the Moon, or see clouds that look like elephants. If you indulge a habit of noticing these things, you will see them ... See more

thinking in categories would interfere with my ability to freely pattern-match