Seeing something in nothing

When individuals lack control of a situation, they are more likely to see patterns where they don’t exist in an attempt to restore control to the situation. But, they also say that self-affirmation exercises can reduce this deceptive phenomenon, known as illusory pattern perception, in an individual, researchers report in the Oct. 2 issue of Science. These findings confirm long-standing beliefs that the perception of patterns is a compensatory mechanism provoked by helpless feelings of lacking control, and they also provide insight into how this illusory pattern perception can be overcome. Jennifer Whitson and Adam Galinsky performed six experiments with human subjects in which they induced a lack of control and measured illusory pattern perception with various stimuli to reach these conclusions. They found that participants who lacked control in the various experiments perceived more illusory patterns, like seeing images in noise, forming illusory patterns in stock market information, perceiving conspiracies, and developing superstitions. The researchers suggest that perceiving patterns, even illusory ones, is enough to soothe the helpless feeling of lacking control, and at times could even be adaptive, but can also be reduced by self-affirmation exercises.

ARTICLE #15: "Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception," by J.A. Whitson at University of Texas in Austin, TX; A.D. Galinsky at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.