From Jesus to baked bread to a man on Mars, many of us often see faces in inanimate objects. A new study shows that this phenomenon – called facial pareidolia – causes people to see male faces more often than female ones.
Scientists from the University of New South Wales showed participants images of objects and asked them to determine the age, gender, and emotions of hidden faces. The results showed a clear advantage for male faces.
"It seems like we have a model stored in the brain for what a basic human face looks like, and it resembles a male face," said Dr Lindsay Peterson, lead author of the study.
Also, when faces on objects are blurred, they are more often perceived as angry. This suggests that we may instinctively see objects as threats before we accurately assess them.
Facial pareidolia is not a new phenomenon; it has been documented for decades. An observer might report seeing a smiling face in a bag, Jesus in a loaf of bread, or a suffering face in an ultrasound image, the researchers explained in Royal Society Open Science.
Many people share these perceptions on social networks like Flickr and Reddit, and the phenomenon has also attracted scientific interest, as the perception of imagined faces may help understand the mechanisms of face processing, a vital function for society and the mind.
In their experiments, the researchers showed participants a bag with a zipper and parts that looked like a mouth. Participants mostly saw a happy, young face. When they were shown abstract “visual noise” images, the interpretations were more varied – “Buddhas, angels, demons, dragons,” Dr. Peterson said.
In another experiment, the researchers used vertical symmetry, a structural cue that resembles the human face. Participants again reported male and angry faces, even though there were no real facial features.
The reason remains unclear, but researchers suggest it may be linked to social and cultural bias. “Male bias exists in children as young as four and across generations, suggesting it is linked to the brain,” said Dr Peterson.
Overall, this study shows that the brain is predisposed to recognize faces even when there is nothing real there, and the team plans to further explore how these biases change under different conditions. /GazetaExpress/
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