Is That a Face?

Anywhere you look, may it be fruit or veg, or even a piece toast, you see a face. Just why are these "faces" all around us?!

Kang Lee of the University of Toronto, Canada, says seeing Jesus on a piece of toast doesn't necessarily mean you're crazy. It's just your imagination winning over your perception.

This phenomenon is called pareidolia. And it's not just a visual thing. Ever listened to the evil messages hidden in Britney's songs played backwards? Yeah, those accidental words mean nothing, you just imagine they do.

Let's say you're watching TV and suddenly there's this 'white noise' in front of you. In Lee's study, participants saw a person in these gray patterns 34% of the time.

There are several ways that our brain can make us see a person, or a face, somewhere where it really isn't: it predicts what we should see, especially in fog or dim light. This is when what we see becomes subjective - we see what we want to see.

Carl Sagan thought pareidolia is an evolutionary survival technique. We might have a hard-wired need to tell an enemy from friend. Well, indeed! One could get into trouble if one mistook a foe for a friend. But we need to react fast, that's why the simplest patterns might be just enough for our brain to say: "dude, you better pay attention - there might be someone in front of you."

Another point of view is also about our hard-wired needs. We can't help it, but whatever happens, it 'has' to make sense to us - we think it carries a meaning, so we're looking for an intention behind it. That's why some people think they're the 'chosen' ones when they see Virgin Mary on a piece of toast, or find a 'Jesus-on-the-cross' Cheeto (or Cheesus) in the pack. We, however, need to get back to what I mentioned earlier - this is where your imagination wins over your perception. A member of an Amazonian tribe will never understand why you see these people there.

While today it's something we laugh upon and we share all these funny faces around us on the interwebs, not everyone understands that this is how our brain is making an ass of us... by trying to help us.