Neural correlates reveal separate stages of spontaneous face perception.

ABSTRACT: The human brain rapidly detects faces, even in inanimate objects-a phenomenon known as face pareidolia. While this illusion reveals the automaticity of face detection, it also presents a paradox: how does the brain process stimuli that are simultaneously faces and objects? Here, we combined behavioral experiments with electroencephalography to track the temporal dynamics of face pareidolia processing. Using a large stimulus set of human faces, objects containing illusory faces, and matched control objects, we show that perception of face pareidolia is remarkably flexible and task dependent. When making spontaneous similarity judgments, participants (N = 338) perceived illusory faces as intermediate between faces and objects. However, in explicit categorization tasks (N = 22), the same stim

SUBMITTER: Robinson AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12361498 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature