Hey guys, Hailee here.
For those who may not know, I'm a psychology major, so I really enjoy learning about how our brain works and the theories behind why we do certain things.
Before learning anything about cognitive psychology, I barely knew anything about how the brain worked. I never really understood how complex it was, and all of the different things that can happen in our brain.
Today, I'm going to share with you, three odd phenomena's that take place in your brain. And yes, all of these are real and have been documented!
All of these are very common but extremely bizarre cases, and if you guys are interested in learning more, feel free to message me and I can recommend some books.
Imagine seeing your mom, or dad, except when you see them you don't recognize who they are. This is what happens during the process of prosopagnosia; it is a neurological disorder characterized by the inability of recognizing faces. It is also known as facial blindness or facial agnosia.
Depending on the severity, some may only have difficulty recognizing familiar faces, while others may have issues distinguishing a face being different from an object. I would recommend reading the man who mistook his wife for a hat.
It is not related to any forms of memory loss, as you may still know who the person is, but it is more of a result of abnormalities, damage, or a fold in the brain that appears to coordinate the neural systems that control facial perception/memory.
It can result from stroke, traumatic brain injury, or certain neurodegenerative diseases. At the same time, it can run through families.
What happens when you aren't able to recognize a face? People often use other ways to identify people, such as voice/clothing/unique physical attributes. It can also be socially crippling.
Although there is no known treatment, we want to focus on the individual learning compensatory strategies.
Paramnesia is a very broad definition, as it encloses multiple factors into one single category. In all cases, it deals with the issue of recalling events and memory.
The first definition we'll be looking at is any disorder of memory involving misremembering rather than failing to remember an event. Sound familiar? Things such as Deja Vu are included in this category.
For those who aren't familiar with the topic of Deja Vu, it is the experience of being certain that you have experienced or seen a new situation before. Most times, you can attribute the "already seen" experience from a dream.
Another definition that falls under this category is a belief that one is recalling events or experiences that never really occurred, such as false memory.
I've been in this situation before, where you are assured that you've done something with a friend, but when you talk to them about it, they deny it ever happening.
Apophenia is the general tendency to attribute meanings to perceived connections or patterns between seemingly unrelated things. (Finding meaning where there is no meaning).
A good example is the whole ordeal with 11:11. As most of us are aware, whenever we see the specific time we say "make a wish." Have our wishes really come true? No. However, we still make wishes as soon as it hits 11:11. Here are some common examples that you may have witnessed prior:
Pareidolia - perception of a face within an inanimate object. I.e., the headlights and grill of an automobile may appear to be grinning
Confirmation bias - Seen as the direct influence of desire or beliefs. The tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms your hypothesis.
Gambler's fallacy - Rationalizing for gambling. I.e., Seeing patterns in the numbers that appear in lotteries, card games, etc.
It is commonly referred to as an error in perception, and there is no real cause for it, there are some theories such as; template matching/prototype matching/models of pattern recognition.
Apophenia is a normal human experience, it's not usually pathological but can become so when dealing with schizophrenia.