seeing faces everywhere

 Face Pareidolia is not a phrase most people utter, but yet it happens daily to most of us. What is it? It is the ability of the brain to see faces in everyday objects. Let's dig into the concept. 

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Have you ever stared at your bathroom floor and seen what you think looks like a face or an outline of a dog, or an outline of an object? I have. I continue to see various shapes in my bathroom floor linoleum pattern, as well as several faces of different types in the wood grains of doors. This is a real thing. 

 I do know that it's just my brain making sense of the world and that it's not really a face. I understand such things. You have no reason to question my sanity in this scenario if you were concerned by the previous paragraph. The human brain is finding patterns where there are not patterns. That's the real reason you see a face pattern in a light switch or bathroom linoleum. 

Why our brain does this

Many reasons for this exist, including looking for predators and the social instincts of humans. Imagine you are trying to hide from a tiger. If you see its face first you'll live longer. That's the idea behind seeing faces in other things. When anxiety levels are higher you see even more faces. We need to know friend from foe, so it is much safer to mistake something that isn't a face for a face than the other way around. You'd get killed by that tiger, otherwise. 

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Your eyes send a signal to the brain, which then translates what you see. Seeing what looks like two eyes, a nose, and a mouth will come back as a face. Another consideration is what you expect to see. If you were told a face was in the image, you'll see a face most of the time - even in static. An experiment was done that proved this. You'll see it in the first source link. "Jesus in toast" is the name of the study. 

What we know as a friend is shaped by early face shapes in life. We see familiar face shapes and features as safe. This is what we take into account without even realizing we do it. It's a survival instinct. Combatting racism, for instance, can be done in early development by showing an infant all races of people in the first nine months of life. 

The brain assigning meaning to the world around us happens every minute of our lives. We do it automatically. It makes sense that we'd see shapes and faces in wood grains, flooring, outlet covers, rock formations, and other surfaces. Confirmation bias influences what we see. Not everyone sees the same shape in the clouds or the shape of a mustache in the flooring. 

Other types 

Motion pareidolia is a real thing, too. Did you see motion? Was it really there? Maybe you didn't really see it. Your brain can be wrong. If you are already keyed up and freaked out, you'll think something moved. This is why you don't watch horror films or creepy videos alone. 

Sometimes this can feed right into superstitions. Superstitious people who see what they expect to see can take it as a "sign" and be wrong. There are times that something is a sign, but there are also pareidolia moments full of confirmation bias. Double-check your "signs" with people you trust. You might be off a little. Or not. It's never a bad idea to ask those you trust for wisdom. 

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You also give emotion and personality to faces. Think of emojis. This is how emojis actually work and provide meaning. You can see a sinister face in wood grain or a friendly laughing face in a pot hole, or a shocked face in an outlet. 

Another thing to take into account is how much you see faces in stuff. High anxiety causes this to happen more. Schizophrenia causes this to a very high degree. No, you are not crazy if you see faces in wood grain and other pictures. All of us see it, but many who have disorders related to Schizophrenia see it so much more than others. 

Sources:

Pareidolia: Why We See Faces in Almost Everything | HowStuffWorks

Pareidolia | Psychology Today

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