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Related Experiment Video

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Attentional capture by real and illusory faces: a failure to replicate.

Francesca Miti1, Angela Ciaramidaro1,2, Sandro Rubichi1,2

  • 1Department of Biomedical, Metabolic and Neural Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, Italy.

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Summary

Illusory faces, like real faces, do not automatically capture attention in visual search tasks. Even minimal face configurations do not guarantee attentional capture, challenging existing theories.

Keywords:
Attention captureFace effectPareidoliaVisual search

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Visual Perception

Background:

  • Faces are socially relevant and rapidly processed, often capturing attention even when task-irrelevant.
  • This suggests an automatic, domain-specific attentional mechanism for face detection.
  • Face pareidolia (illusory face perception) implies a broadly tuned mechanism using minimal information, like the T-shaped face configuration.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if a minimal face configuration is sufficient to automatically capture attention.
  • To test whether real or illusory faces capture attention during a visual search task.

Main Methods:

  • Three behavioral experiments using a visual search paradigm.
  • Participants searched for a target (butterfly or face) among object distractors.
  • Stimuli included real faces, illusory faces, and object distractors.

Main Results:

  • Neither real nor illusory faces captured attention when participants searched for a butterfly.
  • Real faces were detected more efficiently than illusory faces or butterflies when searching for faces.
  • Illusory faces exhibited a search disadvantage compared to butterflies.

Conclusions:

  • A minimal face configuration is not sufficient to automatically capture attention.
  • Attentional capture by irrelevant faces may not be entirely automatic.
  • Contextual factors or task demands likely influence attentional capture by faces.