full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Susan G. Wardle: Seeing things that aren't there? It's pareidolia

Unscramble the Blue Letters


However, even after our brain knows the face is fake, we can still see it in the object. And by messing with these brain areas, we can further impact our atilbiy to differentiate between fact from fiction. In one sutdy, resahercers stimulated a participant’s fusiform face area while they were looking at a non-face object. As a rsleut, the participant rretoepd momentarily seeing facial frueates despite the object remaining unchanged. And while looking at a real face, stimulation of this same area created perceived distortions of the eyes and nose.

These studies ssugegt that certain features are crucial to face detection. Just three dots can be enough to represent eyes and a mouth. People will even assign gender, age, and emotion to iosrluly faces. It’s unclear whether a person’s culture or individual history impacts these perceptions, but we do know that pareidolia isn’t unique to the hmuan experience. Rhesus macaque monkeys show eye movements similar to our own when observing pareidolia-inducing objects and real faces, suggesting that this phenomenon is baked deep into our social parmtie bianrs.

Open Cloze


However, even after our brain knows the face is fake, we can still see it in the object. And by messing with these brain areas, we can further impact our _______ to differentiate between fact from fiction. In one _____, ___________ stimulated a participant’s fusiform face area while they were looking at a non-face object. As a ______, the participant ________ momentarily seeing facial ________ despite the object remaining unchanged. And while looking at a real face, stimulation of this same area created perceived distortions of the eyes and nose.

These studies _______ that certain features are crucial to face detection. Just three dots can be enough to represent eyes and a mouth. People will even assign gender, age, and emotion to ________ faces. It’s unclear whether a person’s culture or individual history impacts these perceptions, but we do know that pareidolia isn’t unique to the _____ experience. Rhesus macaque monkeys show eye movements similar to our own when observing pareidolia-inducing objects and real faces, suggesting that this phenomenon is baked deep into our social _______ ______.

Solution


  1. human
  2. result
  3. study
  4. suggest
  5. illusory
  6. features
  7. reported
  8. brains
  9. ability
  10. primate
  11. researchers

Original Text


However, even after our brain knows the face is fake, we can still see it in the object. And by messing with these brain areas, we can further impact our ability to differentiate between fact from fiction. In one study, researchers stimulated a participant’s fusiform face area while they were looking at a non-face object. As a result, the participant reported momentarily seeing facial features despite the object remaining unchanged. And while looking at a real face, stimulation of this same area created perceived distortions of the eyes and nose.

These studies suggest that certain features are crucial to face detection. Just three dots can be enough to represent eyes and a mouth. People will even assign gender, age, and emotion to illusory faces. It’s unclear whether a person’s culture or individual history impacts these perceptions, but we do know that pareidolia isn’t unique to the human experience. Rhesus macaque monkeys show eye movements similar to our own when observing pareidolia-inducing objects and real faces, suggesting that this phenomenon is baked deep into our social primate brains.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
illusory faces 4
visual stimuli 3
facial features 2
brain imaging 2


Important Words


  1. ability
  2. age
  3. area
  4. areas
  5. assign
  6. baked
  7. brain
  8. brains
  9. created
  10. crucial
  11. culture
  12. deep
  13. detection
  14. differentiate
  15. distortions
  16. dots
  17. emotion
  18. experience
  19. eye
  20. eyes
  21. face
  22. faces
  23. facial
  24. fact
  25. fake
  26. features
  27. fiction
  28. fusiform
  29. gender
  30. history
  31. human
  32. illusory
  33. impact
  34. impacts
  35. individual
  36. macaque
  37. messing
  38. momentarily
  39. monkeys
  40. mouth
  41. movements
  42. nose
  43. object
  44. objects
  45. observing
  46. pareidolia
  47. participant
  48. people
  49. perceived
  50. perceptions
  51. phenomenon
  52. primate
  53. real
  54. remaining
  55. reported
  56. represent
  57. researchers
  58. result
  59. rhesus
  60. show
  61. similar
  62. social
  63. stimulated
  64. stimulation
  65. studies
  66. study
  67. suggest
  68. suggesting
  69. unchanged
  70. unclear
  71. unique