![]() This phenomenon has been noted in past studies, says Dr Palmer. “There is evidence that this reflects a kind of habituation process in the brain, where cells involved in detecting gaze direction change their sensitivity when we are repeatedly exposed to faces with a particular direction of gaze.”įor example, people who were repeatedly exposed to faces that were looking to the left would, when presented with a face looking directly at them, say that the other’s eyes were looking somewhat to the right. “If you are repeatedly shown pictures of faces that are looking towards your left, for example, your perception will actually change over time so that the faces will appear to be looking more rightwards than they really are,” says Dr Palmer. They tested this using the process known as ‘sensory adaptation’, a kind of visual illusion where one’s perception is affected by what has recently been seen. In the study carried out with UNSW colleague Professor Colin Clifford, the researchers tested whether the same mechanisms in the brains that extract important social information when one person looks at another are also activated when we experience face pareidolia. This process relies on parts of our brains that are specialised to extract this type of information from what we see, Dr Palmer says. We also need to recognise who that person is, and read information from their face, like whether they are paying attention to us, and whether they are happy or upset.” “But face perception isn’t just about noticing the presence of a face. “This basic pattern of features that defines the human face is something that our brain is particularly attuned to, and is likely to be what draws our attention to pareidolia objects. Two eyes and a mouth - it doesn't take much for our brains to construct a face. ![]() While human faces all look a bit different, they share common features, like the spatial arrangement of the eyes and the mouth. ![]() For example, the windows of a house might feel like two eyes watching you, and a capsicum might have a happy look on its face.”īut why does face pareidolia occur? Dr Palmer says to answer this question we need to look at what face perception involves. “A striking feature of these objects is that they not only look like faces but can even convey a sense of personality or social meaning. “Pages on websites like Flickr and Reddit have accumulated thousands of photographs of everyday objects that resemble faces, contributed by users from across the world,” he says. In a paper published in the journal Psychological Science, lead researcher Dr Colin Palmer, from UNSW Science’s School of Psychology, says seeing faces in everyday objects is very common, which is highlighted by the many memes and web pages devoted to it on the internet. doi:10.1371/ even see faces even in objects that are distinctly un-humanlike. Association of social contact with dementia and cognition: 28-year follow-up of the Whitehall II cohort study. Sommerlad A, Sabia S, Singh-manoux A, Lewis G, Livingston G. A protocol for a meta-analytic review of randomised controlled trials. Does improving sleep lead to better mental health?. Brain basics: know your brain.ĭi Liegro CM, Schiera G, Proia P, Di Liegro I. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Emotion regulation of hippocampus using real-time fmri neurofeedback in healthy human. Hippocampus in health and disease: An overview. Thalamic structures and associated cognitive functions: Relations with age and aging. Facing the role of the amygdala in emotional information processing. Role of developmental factors in hypothalamic function. ![]() ![]() doi:10.1038/nature21726īiran J, Tahor M, Wircer E, Levkowitz G. Cerebellar granule cells encode the expectation of reward. Wagner MJ, Kim TH, Savall J, Schnitzer MJ, Luo L. The brainstem: anatomy, assessment, and clinical syndromes. Hurley RA, Flashman LA, Chow TW, Taber KH. Are the neural correlates of consciousness in the front or in the back of the cerebral cortex? Clinical and neuroimaging evidence. Boly M, Massimini M, Tsuchiya N, Postle BR, Koch C, Tononi G. ![]()
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