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I guess you are now suspicious, but recall the last time that you or someone else saw a face in the cloud; or this image showing a cute, smiling \u201cface\u201d on the back of a chair. But obviously, there is no<\/em> face. Still, we recognize them, with considerable ease. This tendency for us to see faces where there aren\u2019t any is called face pareidolia. And this tendency can be very useful, and sometimes even profitable. Artists, such as Giuseppe Arcimboldo, have long exploited this tendency to create some of the most imaginative paintings (to read more about Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s work, click here<\/a>); moreover, the ability to see Virgin Mary in toast is obviously worth 28,000 dollars on eBay (to see the news, click here<\/a>). Given its prevalence and potential value, it\u2019s natural to wonder how exactly do we recognize those non-existent faces? Saddly, I don\u2019t know the answer for sure, but perhaps I could offer some possible explanation.<\/p>\n To understand face-pareidolia, I believe it\u2019s actually important to first look at the way we recognize actual faces, for these two phenomena might share similar underlying cognitive process. It turns out that face recognition, though not strictly unique in the realm of pattern recognition which is the process by which we recognize the input sensory information, is still quite special; it features what cognitive psychologists refer to as holistic processing. In other words, not only does basic features, such as the color of your eyes, and the shape of your month, matter, but the holistic spatial relationship between these basic components also play an arguably more important role in face recognition. This holistic processing is supported perhaps first by Robert Yin\u2019s famous experiment (1969), in which he demonstrated that faces presented up-side down were much more difficult to identify than faces presented upright. Moreover, this effect, called inversion effect, was disproportionately manifested in face recognition compared with recognitions of other objects (e.g. house, airplanes, and even men in motion), where smaller inversion effects are found. If you are not convinced yet, then consider another study done by James W. Tanaka and Martha J. Farah (1993). In their study, participants were told to study a bunch of faces, and then were given a recognition test, in which they were presented with a part of a face either within a whole face, or isolated out, to recognize. Consistent with the holistic processing theory, they found that participants could recognize a part of a face more easily when it\u2019s presented within a whole face than when it\u2019s isolated out. Moreover, this effect also manifested itself more profoundly in face recognition compared with other object recognition.<\/p>\n Thus, even though it is impossible for us to see actual eyes, or nose in the cloud or on the back of a chair, we still can, theoretically speaking, perceive something as a face, as long as the holistic pattern of all the basic features themselves resembles that of a face.<\/p>\n However, the importance of holistic processing relies entirely on the assumption that normal face recognition and face pareidolia share similar cognitive processes. If this assumption is not true, then the previous paragraphs can be readily considered as severe digressions committed by some crazy cognitive psychologists who just can\u2019t stop talking about their work. Fortunately, it is not an assumption that is purely imaginary. In a study published in 1997, Nancy Kanwisher, Josh McDermott, and Marvin Chun discovered a particular area, called Fusiform Face area, in human brain that is very active when people are looking at faces but not other objects. A more recent experiment (Josef Parvizi, et. al., 2012) also demonstrated that sending a small electric current to the Fusiform Face area could induce distortions in people\u2019s face recognition. Hence, it is very clear that Fusiform Face area is very involved in normal face recognition process. If research could demonstrate that this same area is also very active in the process of face pareidolia, then it will be reasonable to think that normal face recognition and face pareidolia at least share some similar underlying cognitive processes. And indeed such study (Liu et. al., 2014) exists, in which right Fusiform Face area was shown to be particularly active when participants believed that they \u201csee\u201d faces.<\/p>\n Thus, I hope you are now convinced that the holistic processing actually plays an important role in face pareidolia. However, you might still not be satisfied, since this holistic processing does not seem to explain the considerable ease we experienced when we perceive those faces. Hence, it seems that holistic processing is not the entire story.<\/p>\n Scrambled face from Johnson et. al., 1991.<\/p><\/div>\n In order to account for this extraordinary ease, I think perhaps we could first think of the reasons why certain tasks might be very easy and natural to perform. One possible reason is practice. If we\u2019ve been practicing certain task for a very long time, we would expect to perform that task with ease. Hence, if holistic processing is developed in a very early stage, then it will be possible that, through extensive, though not conscious, practices, the holistic processing becomes really natural, and eventually becomes the dominant processing in face recognition. So is it? The short answer is yes. First, it is well-known that newborn babies\u2014babies within one hour of birth\u2014are more willing to track normal faces than scrambled faces in which, though basic features such as eyes, and nose exist, they exist in a spatially abnormal fashion (Johnson et. al., 1991). Second, the aforementioned inversion effect, which is considered as a hallmark for holistic processing, was also observed in 1-3-day-old infants (Turati et. al., 2006). Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that holistic process is indeed developed very early in life. In fact, face pareidolia has also been recorded in 10-month-olds and 12-month-olds (Kato & Mugitani, 2015). Hence, it seems that we could argue that the ease we experienced in the process of face pareidolia is a result of a prolonged practice of\u00a0 holistic processing in face recognition and face pareidolia that started almost in the first year of life.<\/p>\n<\/a>