Apophenia is the tendency to perceive meaningful patterns, connections or significance in random or unrelated data. The term was coined by the psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in 1958 to describe the onset of delusional thinking in psychosis, but it has since been adopted more broadly in psychology and cognitive science to describe the everyday tendency to see patterns, such as faces in clouds or connections between unrelated coincidences, that are not actually present. Related, narrower phenomena include pareidolia, the perception of a specific pattern such as a face in an ambiguous stimulus, and the clustering illusion, seeing patterns in what is actually random data.
Facts
Core ClaimConrad first used the concept clinically, to describe the onset of delusional thought in psychosis as self-referential over-interpretation of real sensory input rather than hallucination; psychology later broadened it to the everyday tendency to see faces in clouds or meaning in coincidence. 1 First Described Year Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
In Branch
Source Wikipedia: Apophenia
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Apophenia
Wikimedia Foundationlead paragraph, definition
Apophenia () is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.
lead section, defining sentence
Apophenia () is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.
origin/history passage
The term (German: Apophänie from the Greek verb: ἀποφαίνειν, romanized: apophaínein) was coined by psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in his 1958 publication on the beginning stages of schizophrenia.
lead section, phenomenon-kind classification
is the tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things.
In Branch: Cognitive Psychology, Categories
Wikipedia article 'Apophenia' is filed under Category:Cognitive biases.
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