There is a nice article in the New York Times today about pareidolia – seeing faces in random noise (registration required to read it). I was particularly glad to see they put up a picture of the face on Mars!
The article doesn’t actually use the word pareidolia, which is OK, but I had to laugh – the study of this phenomenon might eventually yield software to help computers recognize faces. Who would have thought the face on Mars would have any real results other than lining Hoagland’s pockets?
