Auditory pareidolia: theoretical foundations from culture, language and the brain

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.22533/at.ed.929522510036

• Palavras-chave: auditory pareidolia, sound perception, cultural context, linguistic activation, neural processing.

• Keywords: auditory pareidolia, sound perception, cultural context, linguistic activation, neural processing.

• Abstract:

  This study addresses the phenomenon of auditory pareidolia, in which the brain interprets ambiguous or random sounds as familiar patterns, converting noises into words, phrases or melodies. This process is analyzed from three complementary perspectives: cultural, linguistic and neural. The cultural perspective highlights how the beliefs, traditions and symbolic practices of each society influence the way in which sound stimuli are perceived and given meanings, showing notable differences between indigenous and western contexts. In the linguistic field, the structure of language is examined, understood as an organized system of signs, which allows the brain to activate and complete linguistic patterns from ambiguous signals. Finally, the neural perspective delves into the brain mechanisms that encode, integrate and "fill in" auditory information through a network of circuits distributed in the auditory cortex and associated areas. The integration of these three views offers a more global understanding of how meaning is constructed, showing that the interpretation of sound is an active process shaped by biology as well as by social and linguistic context. This interdisciplinary approach lays the foundation for future research and practical applications in related fields of communication, neuropsychology and anthropology.