# Automated pareidolia (or whatever the audio equivalent is)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automated-pareidolia-or-whatever-the-audio-equivalent-is/672918>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 2, 2013, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automated-pareidolia-or-whatever-the-audio-equivalent-is/672918 "2013-11-02T13:26:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automated-pareidolia-or-whatever-the-audio-equivalent-is/672918/1 "2013-11-02T13:26:51Z")

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What happens when a fax machine calls a voice-to-text converter? Well, the converter will do its thing, and attempt to generate text from what is effectively just a random jumble of noises, yielding [this](http://www.geekosystem.com/fax-calls-twilio/).

That alone is, while funny, not terribly remarkable, but it struck me as a perfect analogy for how people, when exposed to a random noise, especially if suitably magnified, will begin hearing voices uttering apparently meaningful sentences—this of course being the source of so-called elecronic voice phenomena (EVP, if you want to run with the in-crowd). Like the text to voice machine, it’s just our brain trying to do its thing: find patterns in data and interpret them.

I don’d know, I just thought it’s kinda neat having such a clear-cut example of this mechanism at hand; there’s no real wiggle room for making this into anything paranormal (unless you believe in possessed fax machines, perhaps).

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**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automated-pareidolia-or-whatever-the-audio-equivalent-is/672918/2 "2013-11-02T19:37:45Z")

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Next, feed it through text-to-speech software and send it to a fax machine.

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**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\
**Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automated-pareidolia-or-whatever-the-audio-equivalent-is/672918/3 "2013-11-02T20:03:56Z")

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Reminds me of the time two chatbots had a [conversation](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc439).

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**Author:** ![XRaeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/f14d63/32.png) [@XRaeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XRaeth)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2013, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/automated-pareidolia-or-whatever-the-audio-equivalent-is/672918/4 "2013-11-03T08:36:03Z")

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[HEY, LISTEN!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seKaU-qQuts)