Confirmation Bias

There are so many photos available, especially on the Internet, depicting paranormal activity - such as apparitions, orbs, vortices, and the like - that it can be difficult to determine what they actually are. What makes it doubly more difficult is that conditions at the time of taking these photos may be unique and can't be repeated or emulated in normal circumstances. This is further compounded by things that are normally invisible to the naked eye are caught on film, so are only noticed after the photo has been taken.

Various news articles have shown the apparent figures of religious figures, such as Jesus, the Virgin Mary or Mother Teresa, resulting in a mass pilgrimage to view these holy icons imprinted in ordinary objects. This is where the paraidoliac constructs become really weird.

Click the image to see the original article.

According to a more recent article, the Asian newspaper, The Electric New Paper, Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, was released when a car accidentally crashed into it, splitting the old bark of the tree open. The monkey image apparently appeared around 3 September 2007 in Jurong West New Town, Singapore. Large crowds flocked to view and worship their Monkey God, and to place bunches of bananas and incense sticks at its "feet".

In other news articles, the "Virgin Mary" Toast was sold on eBay for $28,000 to Global Palace, an online casino. By the time the auction had closed, the sale had received over 1.7 million hits. Floridian Diane Duyser discovered the "face" burned into her piece of toast over ten years ago and claims that, during that time, it has never gone moldy and instead has brought her luck, including winning $70,000 at a nearby casino. While I don't actually see image of the Virgin Mary, I do see the face of an actress suspiciously resembling Rita Hayworth, yet if I look at it from a different angle I can see a monk, replete with his cowl. (The full article and image can be found on the BBC News.)

The Nun Bun

Another more infamous article was that of the "Nun Bun". This was an ordinary cinnamon bun that bore a striking resemblance to Mother Teresa, discovered by a customer in 1996 at the Bongo Java coffee shop in Nashville, Tennessee. It was subsequently preserved with shellac and placed in a glass frame. The owner quite clearly capitalized on its world-wide media popularity by selling "Nun Bun" T-shirts, prayer cards and mugs emblazoned with pictures of the anomalous cinnamon bun. But, in December 1996, it was apparently stolen and later turned up again in Seattle.

Parapsychology is not an exact science; it's more like a huge research project to determine the existence, nature and causes of paranormal and psychic phenomena. The golden rules for determining whether something in a photo is real or not are to view the anomalies shown objectively and to eliminate all other possibilities first. This includes dust motes, weather conditions, lighting, the type of camera being used and its shutter speed, and the location itself. Even with extensive studying, it is still difficult to know conclusively what these anomalies are because the person (or persons) analyzing the photos were not present at the exact moment that the photos were taken. Instead, they have to rely on other means - such as graphics programs or digital technology - to manipulate the images and extrapolate the "correct" data therefrom.

"Confirmation bias" is the tendency to search for or interpret new information in such a way that it either confirms or fits into one's preconceptions, leading to avoiding information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs. Indeed, when photos contain unexplainable "extra" images, the original photographers sometimes tend to search for data that they can understand and recognize to explain what they know shouldn't be there. Once found, the mindset is fixated on the notion that it must be paranormal in nature, since they (the images) cannot be explained ordinarily, and no other explanation will deviate it from that notion.

Quite often people will suggest to others what they see in the photo and the brain will search for patterns it can identify or relate to until the same image has been rendered by it. A prime example of this is where a photograph of a wooded area reveals what appears to be a shadowy figure standing beyond the branches. The figure appears to be out of place, so the brain is naturally drawn to it and searches for any kind of pattern it can recognize, usually faces and other shapes. When one is identified, the photo is shared with others, who in turn search for the same set of patterns until the face or shape is seen by them, and a "ghost" is born.

This is known as "pareidolia", a part of "apophenia", which is finding images, shapes, patterns and sounds in random stimuli or meaningless data and making connections to recognizible shapes, such as faces. The term was coined by Klaus Conrad, in 1958, who defined it as an "unmotivated seeing of connections".

If I'm appearing as being cynical, then perhaps that's because I am. I've studied a lot of photographs in my lifetime, even rendered some of my own, performed experiments in order to try and emulate the same types of apparitions I've captured on my Polaroid and digital cameras. I'm not skeptical by any means; I just have a hard time seeing "famous" people in other people's food, or even my own food for that matter. That said, people are entitled to believe that they see Mother Teresa or their Monkey God in ordinary items - and I might even be able to see it myself - but I would still hesitate when saying for certain whether a face or shape is real or not simply because another person sees it. I would analyze it very carefully first before making any concrete conclusions either way.

That is my "confirmation bias".