Attentional capture by pareidolia faces

Arihara, Katsuhiko; Ariga, Atsunori · 2015 · Crossref

DOI: 10.4992/pacjpa.79.0_2ev-078

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Summary

This study investigates whether pareidolia stimuli—non-face objects perceived as faces, such as faces seen in clouds or electrical outlets—automatically capture visual attention. Previous research indicated that pareidolia stimuli evoke brain activity associated with face processing and can trigger automatic gaze-based attentional orienting. The authors hypothesized that if pareidolia stimuli capture attention similarly to real faces, the visual system processes them using the same cognitive mechanisms as genuine faces. Conversely, if they fail to capture attention, it would suggest distinct processing pathways. To test this, the researchers conducted two experiments using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task based on Sato and Kawahara (2014). Participants were required to identify a target character of a specific color within a stream of characters. The critical manipulation involved the presentation of distractors surrounding the character stream 200ms before the target appeared. Experiment 1 served as a replication of prior work using real female faces as distractors. It included four conditions: No Distractor, Frame (empty squares), Face (real female face in one square), and Face Control (mosaic-obscured face). Experiment 2 employed identical procedures but substituted the real faces with pareidolia stimuli (face-like patterns) in the Face and Face Control conditions. Both experiments utilized a within-subjects design with a small sample size (N=4 per experiment). The results from Experiment 1 successfully replicated previous findings: accuracy in identifying the target was significantly lower in the Face condition compared to the No Distractor, Frame, and Face Control conditions. This confirmed that task-irrelevant real faces automatically capture attention, thereby impairing target identification. In contrast, Experiment 2 yielded different results. When pareidolia stimuli were used as distractors, the accuracy in the Face condition did not decrease relative to the other conditions. The pareidolia stimuli failed to capture attention in the same manner as real faces. These findings suggest that the visual system processes pareidolia stimuli differently than it processes genuine faces. While pareidolia may engage certain neural mechanisms related to face perception, it does not trigger the same automatic attentional capture observed with real faces. This distinction challenges the assumption that pareidolia is processed identically to faces across all cognitive domains. The authors conclude that further research with larger participant samples is necessary to confirm these results and better understand the specific cognitive mechanisms underlying pareidolia perception.

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• inattentional change blindness