Abstract
Objectives:Pareidolia is the interpretation of previously unseen and unrelated objects as familiar due to previous learning. The present study aimed to determine the specific brain areas that exhibited activation during real-face and face-pareidolia processing.Methods:Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scans were performed on 20 healthy subjects under real-face and face-pareidolia conditions in National Magnetic Resonance Research Center (UMRAM), Ankara, Turkey from April 2016 to January 2017. FSL software was used to conduct a FEAT higher level (group) analysis to identify the brain areas activated during real-face and face-pareidolia processing.Results:Under both the real-face and face-pareidolia conditions, activation was observed in the Prefrontal Cortex (PFCX), occipital cortex V1, occipital cortex V2, and inferior temporal regions. Also under both conditions, the same degree of activation was observed in the right Fusiform Face Area (FFA) and the right PFCX. On the other hand, PFCX activation was not evident under the real-face versus face scrambled or face-pareidolia versus pareidolia scrambled conditions.Conclusions:The present findings suggest that, as in real-face perception, face-pareidolia requires interaction between top-down and bottom-up brain regions including the FFA and frontal and occipitotemporal areas. Additionally, whole-brain analyses revealed that the right PFCX played an important role in processing real faces and in face pareidolia (illusory face perception), as did the FFA.
Highlights
Of the visual stimuli that have a survival value, faces are among the most important because humans are familiar with perceiving them
After completing group analyses of the 18 subjects under each condition, the activated areas were examined using FSL view; activation under the real-face and face-pareidolia conditions was of primary interest
Based on the real-face and face-pareidolia results, which were labelled by cope1feat analysis, the whole-brain analysis revealed activation in several specific brain areas including the prefrontal cortex (PFCX), occipital cortex V1, occipital cortex V2, and inferior temporal regions
Summary
Of the visual stimuli that have a survival value, faces are among the most important because humans are familiar with perceiving them. Recent studies investigating the FFA have shown that this region exhibits significant activation for real faces as well as during face pareidolia.[3,4,5] Face pareidolia refers to the attribution of real face traits to non-face objects due to illusory perceptions. This phenomenon typically occurs when non-face stimuli erroneously activate a connection between visual input areas and internal representations.[6,7].
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