The term pareidolia was referenced in 1994 by a Steven Goldstein and describes a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or SOUND) being perceived as significant. Basically speaking in laymans terms. Reading more into it than is really there.
My question is, could EVP's just be auditory pareidolia? But, what about class 'A' EVP's?
I think evp's are like orbs..maybe 1 in a 100 is something that should be looked at closer. In my experience the newer digital recorders are so sensitive I think they can p/u things that are random noise or people talking in a different part of the structure and folks take them as evp without looking at the other options. I always try to debunk before I claim to have something and it has worked pretty well for me. Good post and nice page.
I hate it when people have me listen to an EVP and tell me what I'm going to hear, DUH!, guess what I hear what they hear. That is probably an auditory pareidolia. I try to stop them from telling me what they think is on the EVP.
Our group always listen to the recordings, THEN compare what we heard, on at lest half of them we hear something different than everybody else or cannot make it out. We've a few good ones where everybody wrote down the same answer, that would be a Class A.
I think it is a combination. Many EVPs I've heard sound to me like the person is hearing what they want to hear. Others are are very clear.
I happen to love EVP, but I find that I am very critical of it. It has to be able to be understood by many people for me to be convinced, and it also has to come from someone that I believe to be credible. Even if it isn't a loud and clear class A, if many people hear the same thing without knowing what others hear, I don't think that is coincidence.
I think you would have to factor in whether or not the class A's meaning was heard the same on a consistent basis. Maybe EVP's are the only consistent thing we have to go on.
I also think, if you know the stories and you know what was happening at the time, you are set up to hear what you want. I don't think you could ever escape the psychology until people start to experiment without using human influence.
I would say that a great majority falls under this topic. However...when the same thing is heard by many different people as in a class A evp then I think were are dealing with something different.
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