Face pareidolia in male schizophrenia

Abstract

Faces are valuable signals for efficient social interaction. Yet, social cognition including the sensitivity to a coarse face scheme may be deviant in schizophrenia (SZ). Tuning to faces in non-face images such as shadows, grilled toasts, or ink blots is termed face pareidolia. This phenomenon is poorly investigated in SZ. Here face tuning was assessed in 44 male participants with SZ and person-by-person matched controls by using recently created Face-n-Thing images (photographs of non-face objects to a varying degree resembling a face). The advantage of these images is that single components do not automatically trigger face processing. Participants were administered a set of images with upright and inverted (180° in the image plane) orientation. In a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm, they had to indicate whether an image resembled a face. The findings showed that: (i) With upright orientation, SZ patients exhibited deficits in face tuning: they provided much fewer face responses than controls. (ii) Inversion generally hindered face pareidolia. However, while in neurotypical males, inversion led to a drastic drop in face impression, in SZ, the impact of orientation was reduced. (iii) Finally, in accord with the signal detection theory analysis, the sensitivity index (d-prime) was lower in SZ, whereas no difference occurred in decision criterion. The outcome suggests altered face pareidolia in SZ is caused by lower face sensitivity rather than by alterations in cognitive bias. Comparison of these findings with earlier evidence confirms that tuning to social signals is lower in SZ, and warrants tailored brain imaging research.

Dynamic brain communication underwriting face pareidolia

“…As expected from previous behavioral work ( 3 , 10 , 11 ), the impact of display inversion on face response rate was highly significant (face pareidolia with upright orientation, mean ± SD, 0.576 ± 0.171; median (Mdn), 0.612, 95% CI [0.500 to 0.652]; with inversion, 0.363 ± 0.241, Mdn, 0.330, 95% CI [0.256 to 0.470]; Wilcoxon signed-rank test, z = 3.66, P = 0.0003, two-tailed; effect size, eta squared η 2 = 0.61). The difference in face response rate with upright orientation and no-face response rate with display inversion (0.628 ± 0.243, Mdn, 0.656, 95% CI [0.520 to 0.736]) was nonsignificant (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, z = 0.70, P = 0.487, two-tailed; n.s.).…”

“…Face pareidolia is a tendency to see faces in nonface images such as grilled toasts, landscapes, or still-life fruits ( 1 – 14 ). This ability implies high tuning or a kind of predisposition to a coarse face scheme such as two eyes above a mouth in the visual input ( 10 , 15 ).…”

“…Face pareidolia is a tendency to see faces in nonface images such as grilled toasts, landscapes, or still-life fruits ( 1 – 14 ). This ability implies high tuning or a kind of predisposition to a coarse face scheme such as two eyes above a mouth in the visual input ( 10 , 15 ). Such a rough face scheme (or template) is considered to emerge early in the lifespan or even be hardwired in the brains of humans, nonhuman primates, domestic chicks, and even in species without parental care ( 16 – 20 ).…”

“…With this purpose in mind, we used MEG, a noninvasive brain imaging technique providing for high temporal resolution. We analyzed gamma oscillatory activity during processing of Face-n-Thing images ( 3 , 10 , 11 ) either with canonical orientation or display inversion that severely impedes face pareidolia ( Fig. 1 ).…”

Preliminary evidence of an increased susceptibility to face pareidolia in postpartum women

“…But beyond the early stages of infancy, it is unclear whether our sensitivity to illusory faces changes across time. Although investigations have shown that susceptibility to face pareidolia varies across individual participants [17,18] and clinical populations [19][20][21][22][23][24][25] there has been no attempt to understand whether this susceptibility is stable across an individual's lifespan.…”