Hello AWADtalk. I've been receiving AWAD by e-mail for about a year, but never checked out the webpage properly. I wasn't even aware there was a chat forum. It was only once I went hunting through Anu's archives after a word when I spotted the link. I hope you can help me with my problem.

I was reading an interesting article about visual perception in the New York Times when I came across the interesting word: "pareidolia", which you've no doubt already heard of and perhaps discussed. I hadn't heard of it, but a google search threw up a slew of articles about faces on tortillas and faces on Mars and even a face (if you can call it a face) in the smoke of the burning World Trade Center. Anyway, in one of these articles I found yet another word: "apophenia". I tried to get to the bottom of exactly what the difference between the two is, and am finally desperate (or curious?) enough to put it to a forum.

Here are the dictionary definitions of the two words:

Quote:

pareidolia

a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague stimulus which is perceived as clearly being something



Quote:

apophenia

the spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness in unrelated things; seeing patterns where none, in fact, exist



It looks like a case of tomayto-tomahto to me, but I'm hoping someone will be able to refine the distinction.

Thanks in advance for any light you can shed on this,

Nathan.