Do you also see faces in the coffee foam?
Researchers use artificial intelligence to investigate possible causes of known sensory illusions
We see faces everywhere in everyday life - even where there aren't actually any, for example in the foam of our morning coffee, on tree trunks or in the clouds. Why we humans have the ability to recognize eyes, mouths and sometimes even noses in a wide variety of objects has not yet been clarified. Researchers at Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU) suspect that this sensory illusion, known as facial pareidolia, is due to the fact that our brains have perfected two different abilities at the same time: namely recognizing faces on the one hand and classifying objects on the other. The study has been published in the journal PLOS Computational Biology.
The two JLU scientists compared reactions to certain sensory stimuli in the brains of test subjects with neuronal networks that they had developed using artificial intelligence. Only one of these computer-controlled networks reacted similarly to a human brain to supposed facial features in inanimate objects - namely the one that had previously been trained to identify faces and classify objects into generalizable categories.
"This result suggests that this sensory illusion in humans is also due to the fact that our brain has learned to recognize faces and categorize objects at the same time," says Prof. Dr. Katharina Dobs, Professor of Applied Computer Science with a focus on cognitive systems. "So when we see a face in our coffee foam or in the clouds, it's not a random curiosity, but a systematic by-product of our brain's optimization."
According to the last author, the study not only contributes to understanding the possible causes of facial pareidolia - the researchers also want to draw attention to the potential of artificial neural networks to explore other complex phenomena related to human vision.
Prof. Dobs works in the interdisciplinary field of perception research, which is currently also involved in the Cluster of Excellence initiative "The Adaptive Mind" in the nationwide Excellence Strategy. For students interested in this field of research, JLU offers the international Master's degree program "Mind, Brain and Behavior".
Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.
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