Posted on 02/13/2007 4:41:28 PM PST by blam
A cloud formation that some have interpreted as the face of God. (Dave Watkins)
Science unravels why we see faces everywhere
By Elizabeth Svoboda Published: February 13, 2007
More than a decade ago, Diana Duyser of Hollywood, Florida, received a religious message through an unlikely medium — a grilled cheese sandwich she had made herself. As she gazed at the brown skillet marks on the surface of the bread, a familiar visage snapped into focus.
"I saw a face looking up at me; it was the Virgin Mary staring back," she told reporters in 2004. "I was in total shock."
After holding on to the stale relic for 10 years, Duyser put it up for sale on eBay. The auction generated so much excitement that the sandwich eventually sold for $28,000, proving that she was not alone in seeing a face where none should reasonably exist. Such faces made headlines again near the end of 2006, when Mars Express, an orbiter from the European Space Agency, captured the highest-quality three- dimensional images to date of what looks like a face in the Cydonia region of Mars. The photos reignited conspiracy theories that governments on Earth are trying to hide the existence of intelligent life on Mars.
Why do we see faces everywhere we look: in the moon, in Rorschach inkblots, in the interference patterns on the surface of oil spills? Why are some potato chips the spitting image of Fidel Castro, and why was a cinnamon bun with a striking likeness to Mother Teresa kept for years under glass in a coffee shop in Nashville, Tennessee, where it was nicknamed the Nun Bun?
Compelling answers are beginning to emerge from biologists and computer scientists who are gaining new insights into how the brain recognizes and processes facial data.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Yup. What other nonsense has GoldenPalace.net purchased from eBay?
Not only do I see faces in clouds (and elsewhere), I hear voices too!
LOL. I hear more voices than I see faces.
Sometimes when I look at a face, I see a cheese sandwich. Whats wrong with me?
Face recognition is the first thing a human recognizes..
Bump
Yes to both, but hearng voices is rare.
Music, though...ahh, The Music of the Spheres is what I hear, with, once in a while, an angelic vocal component.
Just because other people think it is only fans, heaters, and refrigerator motors running doesn't make it so!
We need highly paid scientists to tell us that humans are accustomed to looking at faces and to recognize faces?
It's obvious that we spend the better part of most days looking at faces. We have a built-in ability to see faces. It's so good that we can recognize a person from the back of the head even if we have never seen the person before from the back of the head!
Many, many other ridiculous things. Whenever you hear of an auction and you think "who in their right mind would bid on this?" - odds are it is Golden Palace.
The baby sees the interacting human face more than anything else. We are designed to interact.
I just wish the water spots on my windshield would shut-the-hell-up!
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