Pareidolia is a phenomenon where your eyes play a trick on you by showing you a face that isn’t on the area you were staring at. A new study discovered that while we usually see an illusory face, we also tend to see age, emotion, and gender.
According to one of the researchers, Jessica Taubert, the study was done to find out if the examples of the perceived illusions from the phenomenon carry social signals, such as gender and expression. From the 3,815 participants, Taubert and her colleagues found a pattern. The pattern showed a bias in gender perception– more illusory faces were seen as male than female.
When it comes to emotions, the responses were varied, with 34 percent of the images perceived as happy, 19 percent surprised, 19 percent neutral, and 14 percent angry.
Image credit: Harry Grout, Taubert et.al