Has it happened to you that while you are looking at something, certain features of it resemble recognizable figures? Happy, sad or angry faces; silhouettes of people, animals or objects… This has a name and is known as pareidolia, an act of involuntary reflex that occurs when the brain applies a known identity to any object, area or landscape.
In the Pedralbes monastery in Barcelona, ​​a series of figures in the shape of animals and people have created excitement, which are awakening the imagination of visitors.
As shown in these photographs that Isaura Marcos shares for Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia, we can observe some very peculiar figures that have been created from the tastings carried out on the wall of the infirmary of this historic Barcelona religious site.
“I like to observe the small daily details of my environment because it is also art”, comments the author of the snapshots in light of these curious figures that she has portrayed.
One of them looks like a bear, or is it a dog?… While the figure of a woman is attributed to another, Victorian style. It’s possible?
Although these tastings on the wall, as Isaura Marcos explains, “give a glimpse of remains of medieval paintings from the 14th or 15th century”, they have also unleashed this fun visual game that surprises visitors. Although not everyone notices them, at least until someone warns them: “Do you see the bear on the wall?… And the figure of the woman?”
There are two possible answers for the identity of this figure on the wall. On the one hand, it may be the image of a bear, where the trunk and face can be seen in profile. However, with more observation, the stamp of a dog, specifically, of the Shar Pei breed, is also identified. Each one, according to his referents, sees one thing or another.
Although in this case a little more time is needed, it seems that this other tasting has revealed the back of a Victorian woman and “with a little imagination, it could be a painting by the French painter James Tissot, a lady dressed in black and wearing a hat”, says the author of the photographs.
This psychological phenomenon is produced by activating neural circuits specialized in recognizing certain parts of the body.
That is, it is the response that the brain gives when vision captures a stimulus and quickly identifies it as a known image.
