Abstract
Research on face sensitivity is of particular relevance during the rapidly evolving Covid-19 pandemic leading to social isolation, but also calling for intact interaction and sharing. Humans possess high sensitivity even to a coarse face scheme, seeing faces in non-face images where real faces do not exist. The advantage of non-face images is that single components do not trigger face processing. Here by implementing a novel set of Face-n-Thing images, we examined (i) how face tuning alters with changing display orientation, and (ii) whether it is affected by observers’ gender. Young females and males were presented with a set of Face-n-Thing images either with canonical upright orientation or inverted 180° in the image plane. Face impression was substantially impeded by display inversion. Furthermore, whereas with upright display orientation, no gender differences were found, with inversion, Face-n-Thing images elicited face impression in females significantly more often. The outcome sheds light on the origins of the face inversion effect in general. Moreover, the findings open a way for examination of face sensitivity and underwriting brain networks in neuropsychiatric conditions related to the current pandemic (such as depression and anxiety), most of which are gender/sex-specific.
Highlights
Face pareidolia refers to a tendency of seeing faces in patterns of clouds, shadows, landscapes and houses
Post-hoc analyses showed that: (i) with upright display orientation, there was no gender difference in response time (for females, 417.81 ±173.20 ms; for males, 413.02±197.40 ms; t(44) = 0.22, p = 0.996, n.s.), while with display inversion, there was a tendency for females to respond faster than males when they had a face impression (for females, 427.32±174.96 ms; for males, 480.78±246.07 ms; t(44) = 2.47, Fig 2
We explored a potential impact of display orientation and gender of observer on face pareidolia, our ability to seeing faces in face-like non-face images such as clouds or toasts
Summary
Face pareidolia refers to a tendency of seeing faces in patterns of clouds, shadows, landscapes and houses. A kind of predisposition for seeing faces in non-face images or, in other words, to a coarse face schema (such as two eyes above a mouth) emerges early in lifespan [1]: fetuses in the third trimester of pregnancy [2], human infants [3,4,5,6], children aged 5–6 years [7], nonhuman primates such as the Rhesus monkey [8], domestic chicks [9, 10], and even tortoise hatchlings [11] are reported to demonstrate a preference for face-like stimuli over similar scrambled or presented upside-down configurations and images of other objects that do not elicit face impression Such preference in species with no parental care advocates the existence of a general mechanism to detect animacy in the natural environment [12].
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