Our brain is so accustomed to seeing faces that we usually detect facial features where there are none, such as in stones, clouds, or a stain on the wall. This phenomenon is very well known in Psychology and is called “pareidolia”. In practice, pareidolia involves misperceiving a stimulus that is vague or random and giving it a recognizable form.
Obviously, all people do not have the same ability to distinguish faces from seemingly unconnected patterns. That is why a study has now asked why some people are more likely than others to perceive illusory faces.
To answer this question, the researchers selected dozens of photos, some vaguely remembering the appearance of a face and others not. The images were very varied and included everything from furniture to natural landscapes, cities and rocks.
To choose people, the researchers used three different ads. In one city they announced that they were looking for people who saw the paranormal from a positive perspective, in another that they needed people who believed in the invisible spiritual world, and in a third, that they were looking for people who were skeptical about the paranormal phenomenon.
Among all the candidates, 47 people were selected. Thus three groups were formed: those who believed in paranormal activity, the religious and the atheists. Each person was shown the selected photos and asked to say what they saw in them. They were also asked if they could distinguish human faces.
The interesting thing was that those who believed in the paranormal or the spiritual world distinguished more faces than those who considered themselves skeptics or atheists. In other words, these people were more sensitive to seemingly unconnected patterns and tended to form faces.
Of course, this is not the first experiment that has been conducted trying to understand why some people give different meanings to visual patterns. In the past it had already been shown that those who believe in the paranormal have a tendency to draw conclusions based on inadequate or not entirely objective evidence.
Social or phylogenetic phenomenon?
The explanations for this phenomenon are many. For example, Jeff Hawkins states that it is because human beings have a tendency to form patterns based on our experiences and beliefs. This would explain why doctors can distinguish human organs more easily than other people in seemingly confusing images. In practice, our brain gives meaning to what we see depending on what we have experienced and even according to our expectations.
Carl Sagan proposes another theory. He states that it is due to an ancestral survival technique since in the past, identifying friendly faces from enemies was essential to not lose one’s life. Thus, our brain was perfected and today it would be programmed to identify human faces using very few details. This way we could recognize a person in the distance, even in low light.
In 2009, a very interesting study was developed that supported Sagan’s theory. In this experiment, it was observed that perceiving human faces in confusing images causes activation in the ventral fusiform cortex, a response that is seen when we see real faces but not when we see objects. Scientists hypothesize that this area became specialized in the recognition of faces and that it acts practically automatically to then give our brain time to perceive if the face shows anger and aggression or if, on the contrary, it is a friendly face.
Obviously, this phylogenetic theory does not fully explain why some people are more likely than others to see faces. Therefore, I consider that the most appropriate explanation would be that, although we have a greater facility to distinguish human faces in relation to objects, our experiences and expectations play a fundamental role in forming an image from confusing clues.
References:
Riekki, T. et. Al. (2012) Paranormal and Religious Believers Are More Prone to Illusory Face Perception than Skeptics and Non-believers. Applied Cognitive Psychology.
Hadjikhani, N.; Kveraga, K.; Naik, P. & Ahlfors, S. P. (February 2009) Early (M170) activation of face-specific cortex by face-like objects. Neuroreport; 20 (4): 403–407.
