Superstitious Perceptions

Liza Morton; Philippe Schyns; Frederic Gosselin; Lizann Bonnar

Superstitious Perceptions

Liza Morton, Philippe Schyns, Frederic Gosselin^*, Lizann Bonnar

^*Corresponding author for this work

Psychology

Research output: Contribution to conference › Abstract › peer-review

Abstract

It has long been observed that we sometime perceive complex scenes in blots, rocks, or clouds, but the phenomenon has attracted little scientific attention. We propose that a weak–or superstitious–match between a memory template and a sparse stimulus is responsible for such perceptions. We provide reverse-correlation evidence for this theory.

Original language	English
Publication status	Published - 4 Aug 2001
Event	23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society - Edinburgh, United Kingdom Duration: 1 Aug 2001 → 1 Aug 2001

Conference

Conference	23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
Country/Territory	United Kingdom
City	Edinburgh
Period	1/08/01 → 1/08/01

Cite this

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title = "Superstitious Perceptions",

abstract = "It has long been observed that we sometime perceive complex scenes in blots, rocks, or clouds, but the phenomenon has attracted little scientific attention. We propose that a weak–or superstitious–match between a memory template and a sparse stimulus is responsible for such perceptions. We provide reverse-correlation evidence for this theory.",

author = "Liza Morton and Philippe Schyns and Frederic Gosselin and Lizann Bonnar",

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TY - CONF

T1 - Superstitious Perceptions

AU - Morton, Liza

AU - Schyns, Philippe

AU - Gosselin, Frederic

AU - Bonnar, Lizann

PY - 2001/8/4

Y1 - 2001/8/4

N2 - It has long been observed that we sometime perceive complex scenes in blots, rocks, or clouds, but the phenomenon has attracted little scientific attention. We propose that a weak–or superstitious–match between a memory template and a sparse stimulus is responsible for such perceptions. We provide reverse-correlation evidence for this theory.

AB - It has long been observed that we sometime perceive complex scenes in blots, rocks, or clouds, but the phenomenon has attracted little scientific attention. We propose that a weak–or superstitious–match between a memory template and a sparse stimulus is responsible for such perceptions. We provide reverse-correlation evidence for this theory.

M3 - Abstract

T2 - 23rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society

Y2 - 1 August 2001 through 1 August 2001

ER -

Superstitious Perceptions

Abstract

Conference

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