Psychology of Perception and Misperception — Source Review

Finding. Illusory faces are processed rapidly by face-selective visual cortex, with the brain initially treating them more like real faces than matched objects before the representation resolves back toward ordinary object processing within about 250 ms.

Source. Wardle, Susan G.; Taubert, Jessica; Teichmann, Lina; Baker, Chris I. Rapid and dynamic processing of face pareidolia in the human brain. Nature Communications, 2020. View source

Source type: Peer-reviewed · Reliability: High — open-access neuroimaging paper in a major journal using converging fMRI and MEG methods. · Classification: Established science

Why it matters for PRN. This is strong evidence that seeing a face in toast, clouds, bark or stains is not “irrational”; it is a fast feature of ordinary human perception. The paper is particularly useful because it distinguishes early face-detection from later reinterpretation, which helps explain why face-like anomalies can feel immediate and compelling.

Finding. Individual differences in pareidolia are linked to visual imagery vividness and perceptual uncertainty, and suggestive instructions can strengthen the tendency to report faces in noise.

Source. Salge, J. H., et al. Anomalous visual experience is linked to perceptual uncertainty and visual imagery vividness. Psychological Research, 2021. View source

Source type: Peer-reviewed · Reliability: High — peer-reviewed lab study directly relevant to ambiguous visual anomaly reports. · Classification: Established science

Why it matters for PRN. The practical lesson for PRN is simple: if an investigator primes participants to expect “faces”, “figures”, or “presence”, reports will likely increase. It also shows that confidence in what is seen is not a clean indicator that the stimulus itself was clear.

Finding. Paranormal belief was associated with perceptual and attentional biases, but this study did not find a simple, domain-general bias towards illusory agency when people had to classify ambiguous stimuli as faces versus houses.

Source. van Elk, Michiel. Perceptual Biases in Relation to Paranormal and Conspiracy Beliefs. PLOS ONE, 2015. View source

Source type: Peer-reviewed · Reliability: High — open-access behavioural paper with explicit signal-detection framing and clear methodological caveats. · Classification: Disputed

Why it matters for PRN. This source is valuable because it complicates a common oversimplification. It supports the idea that prior beliefs can matter, but it also warns PRN against saying “believers just see more agents everywhere”; what people report depends on the task, the prompt, and the decision rule they are using.

Finding. A temporary loss of personal control increased illusory pattern perception in the original experiment, but this finding is best treated cautiously because later replication attempts have been mixed.

Source. Whitson, Jennifer A.; Galinsky, Adam D. Lacking Control Increases Illusory Pattern Perception. Science, 2008. View source

Source type: Peer-reviewed · Reliability: Medium — influential original paper, but later replication work has raised uncertainty about robustness. · Classification: Disputed

Why it matters for PRN. The study is still useful for PRN because it gives a psychologically plausible route from anxiety and uncertainty to meaningful-pattern reports. However, it should be cited as a contested line of evidence, not as settled consensus.