Animals and Faces in the Clouds - Research Paper Example

In old age, sitting on the porch or in a garden, and watching the changing figures in drifting clouds is still a pleasurable way to pass the time. Sometimes it is conscious imagination at work, but often, especially when there is social confirmation, it is seen as a great mystery, this parade of animals and faces. This paper explores why this phenomenon is common.
That it is a common experience is a fact reflected in the number of jokes about the interpretation of clouds. Here is an example (British Council) :

Actually, a common term to describe a sky that is covered with lots of cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds, which appear in a regular wave pattern with blue sky showing in between, is a mackerel sky. It is called that because the clouds resemble the skin of a mackerel. But in Germany and France, the popular designation is interpreted as sheep cloud, because it reminds their people of a flock of sheep. (Sometimes a Bit Fishy).

This is an example of how people in different cultures might see the same or a similar cloud formation differently. Individuals of the same culture may see the same cloud images together or may see them differently, like a Rorschach ink blot. But why do human beings look at a cloud and see animals or faces or other very specific imagery?

One research study concluded that “uncertainty following a positive event prolongs the pleasure it causes and that people are generally unaware of this effect of uncertainty” (Wilson, Centerbar and Kermer 5). Knowing something, in a logical, certain way, takes away from pleasure by enforcing predictability, and the emotional response is less intense. The cognitive process involved in the logical analysis also takes attention away from the pleasant experience. Humans generally want to increase pleasure but, when given a choice to know the outcome or not, in a pleasurable event, they often choose to satisfy their curiosity at the expense of their continued pleasure (Wilson, Centerbar and Kermer 15)

So if children find pleasure in lying in the grass and exercising their imaginative capacities, then continuing to see shifting cloud images might be a way to prolong their pleasure. The same might be true for vacationers on a camping trip or elderly people on a porch or in the garden. Read More