From Jesus appearing in your morning toast to spotting a man on Mars, many of us have experienced the uncanny sensation of seeing faces in everyday objects. This intriguing occurrence, known as face pareidolia, has now been further explored in a recent study that uncovers a curious bias within our perceptions.
According to researchers at the University of New South Wales, when individuals are presented with images of objects, they are more likely to perceive male faces rather than female ones. Participants in the study were asked to examine these images and attribute ages, genders, and emotions to the hidden faces they detected.
The findings revealed a noticeable tendency to identify faces as male. Dr. Lindsay Peterson, the study’s lead author, explained, “It seems that our brains have a default template for recognizing faces, and this template closely resembles a male face.”
The results revealed a clear bias towards male faces.
‘For whatever reason, it seems like we’ve got this template stored in our brains about what a basic human face is, and it resembles a male face,’ said Dr Lindsay Peterson, lead author of the study.
In addition, if faces in objects are vague, they are more likely to be perceived as angry.
This suggests we may instinctively see objects as threats before we’ve had a chance to evaluate them properly, according to the researchers.
Dr Peterson added: ‘Your lizard brain is telling you that the safest thing is to assume it’s a threat and then deal with it.’
Whether it’s Jesus in your toast or a man in the moon, many of us often spot faces in inanimate objects. Now, a study has revealed how this phenomenon – called face pareidolia – causes people to see male faces more often than females
Respondents were shown a picture of a handbag whose zip, folds, and buckles appeared to form a mouth, left. They were also shown a picture of more abstract ‘visual noise’, right. When asked what they saw in the images, participants consistently saw a young, happy smiling face in the bag. However, there were a range of interpretations for the visual noise
Face pareidolia is not a new phenomenon, and has been documented for decades.
‘An observer may report seeing a smiling face on the side of a handbag, Jesus in a piece of toast, or a pained face in an ultrasound image,’ the researchers explained in their study, published in Royal Society Open Science.
They continued: ‘These phenomena have generated a flurry of interest from the public, with social media sites such as Flickr and Reddit hosting thousands of user–uploaded images of illusory faces in everyday objects.
‘Face pareidolia has also generated interest within the scientific community, as the perception of illusory faces can be informative of the mechanisms involved in face processing, a vital function that underpins our social and cognitive functioning.’
While face pareidolia has been extensively studied, until now, the nature of the faces we see in objects has remained unclear.
To get to the bottom of it, the team enlisted 70 participants to take part in two experiments.
In the first experiment, respondents were shown a picture of a handbag whose zip, folds, and buckles appeared to form a mouth.
They were also shown a picture of more abstract ‘visual noise’.
Researchers from the University of New South Wales showed participants photos of objects, and asked them to assign the faces hidden within them ages, genders, and emotions. The results revealed a clear bias towards male faces
Faces in objects are more likely to be perceived as angry. This suggests we may instinctively see objects as threats before we’ve had a chance to evaluate them properly, according to the researchers
Even without facial features to guide them, the participants repeatedly reported seeing angry, male faces
When asked what they saw in the images, the results revealed that participants consistently saw a young, happy smiling face in the bag.
However, there were a range of interpretations for the visual noise.
‘Buddha, angels, demons, dragons,’ Dr Peterson explained.
She added: ‘It’s amazing you can have these quite rich responses to a stimulus that is essentially noise.
‘It is quite remarkable what we see given that in the noise stimulus, it is just noise. There really isn’t anything there.’
In the second experiment, the researchers introduced vertical symmetry – a subtle structural cue that loosely mirrors the layout of a human face.
Again, the visual noise images were interpreted more diversely but patterns did begin to emerge.
Even without facial features to guide them, the participants repeatedly reported seeing angry, male faces.
Faces in inanimate objects are more likely to be seen as angry and male, according the findings of the study
Pareidolia is the psychological response to seeing faces and other significant and everyday items in random stimuli
While the reason for this remains unclear, the researchers suggest it may come down to social and cultural biases.
‘The male bias exists across generations and in children as young as four years old, which suggests that it’s hard wired,’ Dr Peterson said.
Overall, the findings suggest the brain is pre-determined to recognise faces even when there aren’t really any there.
The team now plans to explore how these biases shift under different conditions.
WHY DO WE SEE FACES IN INANIMATE OBJECTS?
Pareidolia is the psychological response to seeing faces and other significant and everyday items in random stimuli.
It is a form of apophenia, when people see patterns in random, unconnected data.
There have been multiple occasions when people have claimed to see religious images and themes in unexpected places.
On the red planet, one of the most famous is the ‘face on Mars’ spotted by one of the Viking orbiters in 1976.
This was later proven to just be a chance alignment of shifting sand dunes.
An image captured in 2015 by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which has been in orbit around the red planet since 10 March 2006, revealed a face-like feature at one of many monitoring sites at the South Pole residual cap (SPRC) on Mars
