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The phenomenon - called face pareidolia - causes humans to detect and react to illusory faces in the same way as real ones. Humans seem hardwired to see faces in everyday objects like clouds, the moon, and tree trunks - some have even seen an imagined Jesus in cheese on toast
Pareidolia (/ˌpærɪˈdoʊliə, ˌpɛər-/;also US: /ˌpɛəraɪ-/)is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none.
Common examples are perceived images of animals, faces, or objects in cloud formations, seeing faces in inanimate objects, or lunar pareidolia like the Man in the Moon or the Moon rabbit. The concept of pareidolia may extend to include hidden messages in recorded music played in reverse or at higher- or lower-than-normal speeds, and hearing voices (mainly indistinct) or music in random noise, such as that produced by air conditioners or fans.
Scientists have taught computers to use visual clues to "see" faces and other images.
Etymology
The word derives from the Greek words pará (παρά, "beside, alongside, instead [of]") and the noun eídōlon (εἴδωλον, "image, form, shape").
The German word Pareidolie was used in articles by Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum—for example in his 1866 paper "Die Sinnesdelierien" ("On Delusion of the Senses"). When Kahlbaum's paper was reviewed the following year (1867) in The Journal of Mental Science, Volume 13, Pareidolie was translated into English as "pareidolia", and noted to be synonymous with the terms "…changing hallucination, partial hallucination, [and] perception of secondary images."
Explanations
A simple collection of lines may be quickly perceived as a face, and even be interpreted as expressing a particular emotion
Pareidolia can cause people to interpret random images, or patterns of light and shadow, as faces. A 2009 magnetoencephalography study found that objects perceived as faces evoke an early (165 ms) activation of the fusiform face area at a time and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas other common objects do not evoke such activation. This activation is similar to a slightly faster time (130 ms) that is seen for images of real faces. The authors suggest that face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and not a late cognitive reinterpretation phenomenon.A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in 2011 similarly showed that repeated presentation of novel visual shapes that were interpreted as meaningful led to decreased fMRI responses for real objects. These results indicate that the interpretation of ambiguous stimuli depends upon processes similar to those elicited by known objects.
These studies help to explain why people generally identify a few lines and a circle as a "face" so quickly and without hesitation. (In autistic people, it was thought that fewer mirror neurons or mirror neurons not functioning properly may mean that everything is perceived as if it were an object.It does not now seem to be mirror neurons but clearly there are differences in perception in autistic people. People without an autism spectrum condition perceive the face quickly and without hesitation.) Cognitive processes are activated by the "face-like" object which alerts the observer to both the emotional state and identity of the subject, even before the conscious mind begins to process or even receive the information. A "stick figure face", despite its simplicity, can convey mood information, and be drawn to indicate emotions such as happiness or anger. This robust and subtle capability is hypothesized to be the result of eons of natural selection favoring people most able to quickly identify the mental state, for example, of threatening people, thus providing the individual an opportunity to flee or attack pre-emptively.This ability, though highly specialized for the processing and recognition of human emotions, also functions to determine the demeanor of wildlife.
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