What Is Matrixing?
Did You Really See What You Think You Saw?
The TV show Ghost Hunters is largely responsible for bringing this to public attention; it’s another name for paredoilia, the two terms mean more or less the same thing.
Matrixing is the term the Ghost Hunters use to describe the misidentification of something ordinary as something unusual. It comes into play most often when people take photographs and spot something in the picture they are sure was not there when the photo was taken. Often, it is a face or figure and seems to be human.
Why Does Matrixing Happen?
One explanation is that recognizing other humans, and the faces of parents, is the first skill a baby learns. Pattern recognition of this sort is also a survival tool, giving the earliest humans a way to spot predators in hiding. The skill is so fundamental that, when presented with a random set of patterns the human brain attempts to make sense of what it sees. If it can possibly resolve that random pattern into a familiar object or image, it will.
Examples of Matrixing
- The Face on Mars. This infamous picture seems to show the shape of a human face on the surface of Mars, but later pictures of the same area demonstrated that the image was the product of natural features and shadow.
- Car design. The front of a car - the grill, headlights, and shape of the hood - often resemble a face. Designers pay attention to this, giving family cars a friendlier "face", and sports cars a more aggressive one.
- The appearance of "holy" figures in surprising places. The images of Christ, the Virgin Mary or other figures of faith have appeared in locations as diverse as stained concrete, windows and food.
- Shapes in clouds. Probably the most immediately familiar form of matrixing, anyone who has looked into the sky and thought "that cloud looks just like..." has experienced a form of harmless matrixing.
- Rorschach ink blot tests. These depend on a sort of directed matrixing, with the person taking the test allowing their subconsciousness to make the ink shape suggest something, or form patterns.
Other Contributing Factors
Matrixing can be heightened by unfamiliar surroundings, poor lighting, and events being witnessed via peripheral vision. Of course, when hunting ghosts these are the situations an investigator encounters; it is equally true of witnesses, who are disadvantaged by being unaware of matrixing/paredoilia in the first place. Not every ghostly image or encounter can be explained with reference to matrixing, but knowing the phenomena exists can be a useful tool in the arsenal of debunking techniques.
Shapes in clouds, or do you see something more?
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