Day 36 of 150 Pattern Difficulty 2/10
Face pareidolia activates the brain’s face-selective FFA
Quick answer
Face pareidolia activates the brain’s face-selective FFA. Today's question (Face pareidolia) asks about a finding from Liu, J., Li, J., Feng, L., Li, L., Tian, J., & Lee, K. in 2014. The correct option is The fusiform face area (FFA) — full explanation, primary source, and glossary cross-links below.
Today's question
"Seeing a face in toast" — recognising illusory faces in clouds, tree bark, electrical outlets — is called face pareidolia. fMRI studies show this percept reliably activates:
Reveal the answer and explanation
Correct: B — The fusiform face area (FFA)
Liu and colleagues (2014) showed that pareidolic face percepts activate the right fusiform face area at levels comparable to real faces, and that imagining a face in noise enhances FFA tuning. Face pareidolia is fast, automatic, and persists even when observers know the stimulus contains no face — illustrating perception as inference under strong category priors. Developmental studies show pareidolia is present in newborns and likely tied to the survival value of rapid face detection.
About the source
Liu, J., Li, J., Feng, L., Li, L., Tian, J., & Lee, K. (2014). Seeing Jesus in toast: Neural and behavioral correlates of face pareidolia. Cortex, 53, 60–77.
Every Cognition Bible question cites a primary source — a paper, book chapter, or monograph that exists, that we can point to on Google Scholar, and whose finding the question accurately summarizes. No fabricated authority strings, no name-drops without paper-level grounding.
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