{"id":516666,"date":"2026-04-06T23:12:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/516666\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T23:12:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T23:12:20","slug":"theyre-in-clouds-electric-sockets-and-even-on-toast-why-do-humans-see-faces-in-everyday-objects-psychology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/516666\/","title":{"rendered":"They\u2019re in clouds, electric sockets and even on toast. Why do humans see faces in everyday objects? | Psychology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faces: we see them in clouds, electrical outlets and even a $28,000 toasted sandwich<\/a> said to look like the Virgin Mary.<\/p>\n

Known as face pareidolia, seeing faces in\u00a0inanimate objects or patterns of light and shadow is a common phenomenon.<\/p>\n

So primed are our brains to detect facial features that we even see faces in meaningless visual noise, especially when the images are symmetrical, new research suggests.<\/p>\n

In a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science<\/a>, researchers showed participants everyday objects that resembled faces, as well as abstract images of visual noise that had no inherent meaning.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of participants \u2013 90% \u2013 reported seeing a face in at least one of the noise images.<\/p>\n

Study co-author Prof Branka Spehar of the University of New South Wales said researchers wanted to investigate whether images more minimal than objects with face-like features, with \u201ctwo round things which could be eyes \u2026 and a horizontal thing which could be a mouth\u201d, would elicit similar visual responses.<\/p>\n

People saw faces more frequently in the images of objects (96.7% of images) than visual noise (53.4%).<\/p>\n

\"StaticPeople see faces even in images of visual noise, particularly when they are vertically symmetrical. Photograph: Branka Spehar\/UNSW<\/p>\n

Study participants were more likely to perceive the faces in both the objects and visual noise as male \u2013 a finding that backs up previous studies on face pareidolia. The reason for this gender bias was unclear, Spehar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople tend to see pareidolia images as male and young and happy,\u201d said Prof David Alais, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of Sydney, who was not involved in the research. \u201cThe most striking pareidolia images have these \u2026 open, wide-eyed expressions that maybe make you think of youthful enthusiasm, or babies.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the faces perceived in artificial noise were more likely to be seen as older and angrier, while the object faces were more likely to be seen as happy or surprised.<\/p>\n

The reasons for this were still unknown, Spehar said, suggesting that perhaps our brains are primed to identify threats in unfamiliar environments.<\/p>\n

Faces in objects are often perceived as young, male and happy. Photograph: PhotoAlto\/Laurence Mouton\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

In a second experiment, the researchers showed short clips of moving noise in both random and vertically symmetrical patterns. Participants saw faces more often in the clips that were symmetrical (65.8% of clips) than the random patterns (23.6%).<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople were more likely to identify faces in vertically symmetrical visual noise <\/p>\n

Participants reported seeing various images \u2013 such as dragons and demons \u2013 in the random noise. \u201cOnce you introduce vertical symmetry, faces predominate,\u201d Spehar said.<\/p>\n

\"AsymmetricAsymmetric visual noise shown to study participants<\/p>\n

Alais said pareidolia arose as a \u201cfalse positive\u201d in visual processing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most highly adapted things we do with our visual system is detect the presence of faces,\u201d he said. \u201cYou want to detect faces as quickly as possible, in case they\u2019re friends or foes \u2026 but you get a bit of a by-catch, you sometimes catch false faces.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe contemporary view of the brain, and how it works to generate our perceptions of the world, is that it imposes patterns and predictions on incoming input,\u201d he said. \u201cIt does that for reasons of efficiency and speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photograph: Melinda Podor\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

He said a brain system known as the face-selective network was geared towards detecting two eyes, a nose and a mouth. \u201cWe\u2019re predisposed to use that sort of a template, and there\u2019s maybe a bias to see faces in noise compared to other objects.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faces: we see them in clouds, electrical outlets and even a $28,000 toasted sandwich said to look like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[59,102,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-516666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}