Dataset Information

Face Pareidolia in the Rhesus Monkey.

ABSTRACT: Face perception in humans and nonhuman primates is rapid and accurate [1-4]. In the human brain, a network of visual-processing regions is specialized for faces [5-7]. Although face processing is a priority of the primate visual system, face detection is not infallible. Face pareidolia is the compelling illusion of perceiving facial features on inanimate objects, such as the illusory face on the surface of the moon. Although face pareidolia is commonly experienced by humans, its presence in other species is unknown. Here we provide evidence for face pareidolia in a species known to possess a complex face-processing system [8-10]: the rhesus monkey (Macaca mulatta). In a visual preference task [11, 12], monkeys looked longer at photographs of objects that elicited face pareidolia in human observers than at photographs of similar objects that did not elicit illusory faces. Examination of eye movements revealed that monkeys fixated the illusory internal facial features in a pattern consistent with how they view photographs of faces [13]. Although the specialized response to faces observed in humans [1, 3, 5-7, 14] is often argued to be continuous across primates [4, 15], it was previously unclear whether face pareidolia arose from a uniquely human capacity. For example, pareidolia could be a product of the human aptitude for perceptual abstraction or result from frequent exposure to cartoons and illustrations that anthropomorphize inanimate objects. Instead, our results indicate that the perception of illusory facial features on inanimate objects is driven by a broadly tuned face-detection mechanism that we share with other species.

SUBMITTER: Taubert J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5584612 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Face Pareidolia in the Rhesus Monkey.

Taubert Jessica J Wardle Susan G SG Flessert Molly M Leopold David A DA Ungerleider Leslie G LG

Current biology : CB 20170810 16

Face perception in humans and nonhuman primates is rapid and accurate [1-4]. In the human brain, a network of visual-processing regions is specialized for faces [5-7]. Although face processing is a priority of the primate visual system, face detection is not infallible. Face pareidolia is the compelling illusion of perceiving facial features on inanimate objects, such as the illusory face on the surface of the moon. Although face pareidolia is commonly experienced by humans, its presence in othe ...[more]

PMID: 28803877

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Project description:In Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, visual misperceptions are a major problem within the non-motor symptoms. Pareidolia, i.e., the tendency to perceive a specific, meaningful image in an ambiguous visual pattern, is a phenomenon that occurs also in healthy subjects. Literature suggests that the perception of face pareidolia may be increased in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. We aimed to examine, within the same experiment, face perception and the production of face pareidolia in PD patients and healthy controls (HC). Thirty participants (15 PD patients and 15 HC) were presented with 47 naturalistic photographs in which faces were embedded or not. The likelihood to perceive the embedded faces was modified by manipulating their transparency. Participants were asked to decide for each photograph whether a face was embedded or not. We found that PD patients were significantly less likely to recognize embedded faces than controls. However, PD patients also perceived faces significantly more often in locations where none were actually present than controls. Linear regression analyses showed that gender, age, hallucinations, and Multiple-Choice Vocabulary Intelligence Test (MWT) score were significant predictors of face pareidolia production in PD patients. Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) was a significant predictor for pareidolia production in PD patients in trials in which a face was embedded in another region [F (1, 13) = 24.4, p = <0.001]. We conclude that our new embedded faces paradigm is a useful tool to distinguish face perception performance between HC and PD patients. Furthermore, we speculate that our results observed in PD patients rely on disturbed interactions between the Dorsal (DAN) and Ventral Attention Networks (VAN). In photographs in which a face is present, the VAN may detect this as a behaviourally relevant stimulus. However, due to the deficient communication with the DAN in PD patients, the DAN would not direct attention to the correct location, identifying a face at a location where actually none is present.

Dataset Information

Face Pareidolia in the Rhesus Monkey.

Publications

Face Pareidolia in the Rhesus Monkey.

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