The "Pareidolia Effect"
KEY CONCEPT : "Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon involving a stimulus (an image or a sound) wherein the mind perceives a familiar pattern of something where none actually exists.."
Now imagine the same tree with the face removed: The tree (Figure 3) is speaking the same lines with the same voice. Our instinctive response – no matter how much the tree might resemble a person, with limbs for arms and legs – is that someone besides the tree is speaking, perhaps standing behind it, or whispering in our ears. For artists, the consequence of our extreme face sensitivity – and credulousness – is that the sky is the limit in terms of bringing the inanimate world alive. There isn’t any man-made object, plant or landscape element that can’t be given the gift of life, as long as its surface includes elements that we can attribute to a face, typically a pair of eyes and and a mouth. | Figure 3: "Hey you! Get outta here?" |
Figure 7: "World’s Friendliest Airline!” | Interestingly, industrial designers have long been aware of this issue. I was once hired as a consultant on an airplane project, because the designers were concerned that the head-on view of the plane might send the wrong subliminal message, through its unavoidable built-in face. They wanted my opinion as to whether the shape of the cockpit windows, and the features of the front end under the nose, could be adjusted to give a feeling of both friendliness and confidence. They were equally concerned that the plane face not appear angry, or weak. They explained that automobile and truck designers also focused on these same psychologically-charged design issues. |
FiguFiFigure(Alas, my input had no impact at all on the final design of the commercial jet's "face." Important as expressions are, in the case of airplanes, considerations of functionality, cost, weight, and of course safety are overwhelmingly more significant. ) Animators, however, can put the face and its expressive qualities as their first and foremost concern, remembering that once a face of any sort at all is created, it magically becomes a living, breathing member of the tribe. | Figure 8: "Well...Hi there!" |