It’s common for people to see human faces in food, inanimate objects, cliff faces, tree trunks and the moon.
Our brains seem hardwired to see faces when there actually are none, and now new research has revealed why.
According to neuroscientists at the University of Sydney, our brains detect and respond emotionally to these illusory faces the same way they do to real human faces.
The phenomenon of seeing faces in random objects is called face pareidolia.
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Seeing faces in random objects is called face pareidolia. (File photo)
From an evolutionary perspective, it seems that the benefit of never missing a face far outweighs the errors where inanimate objects are seen as faces, said Professor David Alais, the lead author of the study from the universitys school of psychology.
The findings from Alais research was published on Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
There is a great benefit in detecting faces quickly, he said in a media release from the university, but the system plays fast and loose by applying a crude template of two eyes over a nose and mouth. Lots of things can satisfy that template and thus trigger a face detection response.
Windows on a house with a vine that looks slightly like eyes and a mouth smiling. (File photo)
This type of facial recognition response occurs very quickly within a few hundred milliseconds in the brain.
We know these objects are not truly faces, yet the perception of a face lingers, Alais said. We end up with something strange: a parallel experience that it is both a compelling face and an object. Two things at once. The first impression of a face does not give way to the second perception of an object.
In the statement on the University of Sydneys website, Alais explained how the brain has neural mechanisms to rapidly detect faces, and it exploits the common facial structure as a sort of short-cut for rapid detection.
Some taps that could be seen as a face on first glance by some. (File photo)
The study looked at how once a pareidolia face is detected, whether it is then analysed for facial expression, or considered as a false detection and discarded.
As part of their study, the researchers showed a handful of participants a range of faces that included both real faces and pareidolia ones, and asked them to rate the facial expression on a scale between very angry and very happy.
They found that there was a similar emotional response between the inanimate objects and real faces.
Owl-like eyes in tree bark. (File photo)
Pareidolia faces are believed to undergo facial expression analysis in the same way as real faces do, Alais said in the statement. So, not only do people imagine faces, they analyse them and give them emotional attributes.
In the study, the authors write how their results support a shared mechanism for facial expression between human faces and illusory faces and suggest that expression processing is not tightly bound to human facial features.
