RADIOLOGY EDUCATION AND PAREIDOLIA: A LITERARY CRITICISM

Abstract

Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to ascribe a meaningful interpretation to an ambiguous stimuli, typically visual, such that one perceives an object, pattern, or meaning when none exists. Pareidolia and patternicity are two techniques that medical educators occasionally instruct medical students and resident physicians (doctors-in-training) to utilize to learn to identify human anatomy on radiology imaging examinations.