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Face Pareidolia Recruits Mechanisms for Detecting Human Social Attention
Colin J Palmer1, Colin W G Clifford1
1School of Psychology, University of New South Wales.
Psychological Science
|July 23, 2020
Summary
Seeing faces in objects, or face pareidolia, is a perceptual phenomenon. It occurs when the brain
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Face pareidolia involves perceiving faces in inanimate objects.
- The underlying mechanisms, cognitive vs. perceptual, are debated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if face pareidolia activates specific visual mechanisms for human face processing.
- To determine if face pareidolia is a perceptual or cognitive phenomenon.
Main Methods:
- Examined sensory cues to social attention and habituation effects in the temporal cortex.
- Measured cross-adaptation effects between viewing human faces and "pareidolia faces".
Main Results:
- Repeated exposure to pareidolia faces biased human face perception, indicating overlapping sensory mechanisms.
- These cross-adaptation effects diminished when facelike features were removed, abolishing pareidolia.
Conclusions:
- Face pareidolia is a perceptual phenomenon, not just a cognitive association.
- It arises from visual mechanisms evolved for processing social cues from human faces.
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