buzzwordThe term “Apophenia” was coined by neurologist Klaus Conrad and defined as the "unmotivated seeing of connections”, as the perception of patterns or connections where none exist.

Most psychologists agree that this condition exists in everyone to some degree, as it is a bias of the human mind. Or as Umberto Eco, describes it in Foucault's Pendulum: “Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another”.

Which brings us to the reason why Amophenia can be seen as kind of connected to ‘Big Data’. Data created by people that share their thoughts and knowledge more and more often on social networks– look at our Facebook article – are interesting for marketers who try to make sense of all that information to succeed. In fact, today’s marketers are betting big on random posts and tweets to figure out the behavior and interests of their customers in order to serve them more relevant ads. Or are they just seeing patterns that aren’t really there? You decide!

By MediaBUZZ