How are minds might fool us- Blog 1 (Chapter 1)

As in most scholarly textbooks, "Psychology: From Inquiry to Understanding" also starts off with its titles' definition. The first chapter mostly talks about what psychology is, why it is interesting and challenging, why it should be studied, why is it a type of science and scientific thinking, and how it fits into our daily lives. Psychology, the science and study of humans' body and mind, is a very interesting subject because it explains us to ourselves. Psychology defines why you think or act in a certain way. Psychology is the study of 'us.'
In chapter 1, we learn psychology as a science, as a way of thinking. We, the readers, also learn about the misconceptions of psychology, how to prevent biases and how to think scientifically. I think that the most interesting part in the text was when the authors defined the word 'pareidolia' as the likeliness of the human brain believing/interpreting something completely extraordinary or unrelated from the simple visual image the eyes see. Pareidolia seemed to me as if it is something that happened to everyone at least once, and continues to happen. And I feel like it is something we can't really help. If we see a face on the moon, it is pretty hard to erase it from our minds and try not to see a face on the moon again. People who tend to believe in godly miracles might see the word 'God' written on that alligator and they might interpret how this is an example of God sending us a message, instead of thinking that it is only a coincidence. Anyway, why would God necessarily send a message in English? A person with the same religious views who didn't know the word for God in English would not interpret the image the same way.