Humans see evidence of alien life on Mars in pictures, or do they? By Washington Post, adapted by Newsela staff on 09.28.15 Word Count 832 TOP: Leila Wehbe, a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, displays images that used brain scans made from volunteers in a recent experiment, Nov. 26, 2014. Photo: AP/Keith Srakoc. BOTTOM: A NASA rover took this panoramic photo of the Martian landscape. A close-up of the scene reveals, maybe, a tiny creature with spindly arms and a pumpkin-shaped head. Photo: NASA To the folks at UFO Sightings Daily, NASA's images of Mars are better than a visit to a candy shop. Every visit yields a new treat. "Alien critter found on Mars, gazing at rover," reads a recent headline. The website posts what it claims to be pictures of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFO). If you squint at the image, you can almost see a tiny creature with skinny arms and a pumpkin-shaped head looking from behind a rock. Also spotted were two alien ships, a reptile head and a face looking up. And that's just from one photo. "There is so much evidence of intelligent life in this NASA photo," says the post's author, Scott C. Waring. "It's really amazing that the public hasn't done this kind of research long ago."
Lizards And Crabs And Ships, On Mars! Waring is hardly the only person to make such "discoveries." In August, some people on the Internet thought they saw a crab crawling up a Martian cliff. In June, others saw a floating rock in the same picture. Ashwin Vasavada, who works on the Mars rover project, insists that NASA scientists are not trying to hide evidence of alien life. "There is no group that would be happier to see such a thing," he said. "So far we haven't seen anything that is so obvious that it would be similar to what these claims are." When humans look at space rock and piles of sand and "see" a crab, or a lizard, or an alien spaceship, they're being tricked, he said. Not by NASA, but by their own brains. The phenomenon is called pareidolia. It explains why people so often think they see images of Jesus in our food, a man in the moon and pumpkin-headed aliens on Mars. You See It, But Is It Really There? Rather than being supernatural, pareidolia is deeply biological. It stems from an instinctive ability to spot patterns and find something that looks familiar. That skill is what enables humans, without thinking, to recognize things that are important the sight of a smiling face, the sound of an alarmed voice, the low growl of a predator. Occasionally it misleads people. Christopher French is a psychologist at Goldsmiths University of London. He said that the brain has developed ways to identify things quickly, but occasionally it is wrong. "A classic example is the Stone Age guy standing there, scratching his beard, wondering whether that rustling in the bushes really is a saber-toothed tiger. You're much more likely to survive if you assume it's a saber-toothed tiger" and get out of there. Otherwise, you may end up as lunch, he said. Human Brains Mix It Up Pareidolia comes from the brain's instinct to seek out meaning in unclear or unfamiliar images. That instinct is partly about survival. When it comes to the prospect of ending up as someone else's meal, it is usually better to be safe than sorry. It is also partly social. Humans are ready to find faces in unfamiliar places because the ability to recognize an expression is an important part of being human.
"As soon as the infant can see, it recognizes faces, and we now know that this skill is hardwired in our brains. Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents," and thrive, scientist Carl Sagan wrote in "The Demon-Haunted World." People who claim to find religious figures in potato chips or aliens in NASA photographs are often mocked, but psychologists say all people think this way. A 2014 study in the journal Cortex found this to be the case. Participants "saw" faces or letters in images nearly 40 percent of the time when told that half of the photos were not just abstract. "Human brains are uniquely wired to recognize faces," said Kang Lee. He is a psychologist at the University of Toronto and a co-author of the Cortex article. "So that even when there's only a slight suggestion of facial features, the brain automatically interprets it as a face." I've Just Seen A Face Lee found that an area of the brain was turned on when participants thought they saw a face. The part of the brain is called the right fusiform gyrus. Scientists still do not entirely understand how it works. But they know that it is linked to dyslexia, a learning disorder that affects the brains ability to read letters and numbers. Even when this area is working completely normally, it can lead us to see things that aren't really there. Of course, pareidolia is not only our brain's fault. It is more about what we expect to see than anything that is actually there, said Sophie Scott, a neuroscientist at University College London. "We really want to see things like faces, we really want to hear things like voices, and our perceptual system will set out to do that."
Quiz 1 Based on the article, which of the following is TRUE? NASA scientists have found evidence of alien life. People's brains can trick them into seeing images. Infants are not able to recognize faces. People prefer seeing images over hearing voices. 2 Read the sentence from the section "Human Brains Mix It Up." People who claim to find religious figures in potato chips or aliens in NASA photographs are often mocked, but psychologists say all people think this way. What can be concluded from the sentence above? People who do not see aliens are probably not looking hard enough. It is unfair to make fun of those who say they see aliens. People who say they see aliens deserve to be made fun of. It is up to psychologists to decide whether aliens really exist. 3 Read the quote from the introduction [paragraphs 1-5]. "There is so much evidence of intelligent life in this NASA photo," says the post's author, Scott C. Waring. "It's really amazing that the public hasn't done this kind of research long ago." Why does the author include this quotation? to give information about the process by which Nasa evaluates the possibility of alien life to persuade people to look more closely at NASA's images in order to discover alien life to explain why most of the public is not interested in discovering alien life to give an example of the perspective of those who believe in alien life
4 What is the section "Lizards And Crabs And Ships, On Mars!" structured around? possible explanations for the alien "discoveries" reasons why NASA would hide evidence of aliens ways to keep brains from playing tricks on people important information on how to find images in food
Answer Key 1 Based on the article, which of the following is TRUE? NASA scientists have found evidence of alien life. People's brains can trick them into seeing images. Infants are not able to recognize faces. People prefer seeing images over hearing voices. 2 Read the sentence from the section "Human Brains Mix It Up." People who claim to find religious figures in potato chips or aliens in NASA photographs are often mocked, but psychologists say all people think this way. What can be concluded from the sentence above? People who do not see aliens are probably not looking hard enough. It is unfair to make fun of those who say they see aliens. People who say they see aliens deserve to be made fun of. It is up to psychologists to decide whether aliens really exist. 3 Read the quote from the introduction [paragraphs 1-5]. "There is so much evidence of intelligent life in this NASA photo," says the post's author, Scott C. Waring. "It's really amazing that the public hasn't done this kind of research long ago." Why does the author include this quotation? to give information about the process by which Nasa evaluates the possibility of alien life to persuade people to look more closely at NASA's images in order to discover alien life to explain why most of the public is not interested in discovering alien life to give an example of the perspective of those who believe in alien life
4 What is the section "Lizards And Crabs And Ships, On Mars!" structured around? possible explanations for the alien "discoveries" reasons why NASA would hide evidence of aliens ways to keep brains from playing tricks on people important information on how to find images in food