scholarly journals Do you see the “face”? Individual differences in face pareidolia

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liu-Fang Zhou ◽  
Ming Meng

Abstract People tend to see faces from non-face objects or meaningless patterns. Such illusory face perception is called face pareidolia. Previous studies have revealed an interesting fact that there are huge individual differences in face pareidolia experience among the population. Here, we review previous findings on individual differences in face pareidolia experience from four categories: sex differences, developmental factors, personality traits and neurodevelopmental factors. We further discuss underlying cognitive or neural mechanisms to explain why some perceive the objects as faces while others do not. The individual differences in face pareidolia could not only offer scientific insights on how the brain works to process face information, but also suggest potential clinical applications.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiushi Wang ◽  
Yuehua Xu ◽  
Tengda Zhao ◽  
Zhilei Xu ◽  
Yong He ◽  
...  

Abstract The functional connectome is highly distinctive in adults and adolescents, underlying individual differences in cognition and behavior. However, it remains unknown whether the individual uniqueness of the functional connectome is present in neonates, who are far from mature. Here, we utilized the multiband resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 40 healthy neonates from the Developing Human Connectome Project and a split-half analysis approach to characterize the uniqueness of the functional connectome in the neonatal brain. Through functional connectome-based individual identification analysis, we found that all the neonates were correctly identified, with the most discriminative regions predominantly confined to the higher-order cortices (e.g., prefrontal and parietal regions). The connectivities with the highest contributions to individual uniqueness were primarily located between different functional systems, and the short- (0–30 mm) and middle-range (30–60 mm) connectivities were more distinctive than the long-range (>60 mm) connectivities. Interestingly, we found that functional data with a scanning length longer than 3.5 min were able to capture the individual uniqueness in the functional connectome. Our results highlight that individual uniqueness is present in the functional connectome of neonates and provide insights into the brain mechanisms underlying individual differences in cognition and behavior later in life.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Markett ◽  
Christian Montag ◽  
Martin Reuter

AbstractPersonality and individual differences originate from the brain. Despite major advances in the affective and cognitive neurosciences, however, it is still not well understood how personality and single personality traits are represented within the brain. Most research on brain-personality correlates has focused either on morphological aspects of the brain such as increases or decreases in local gray matter volume, or has investigated how personality traits can account for individual differences in activation differences in various tasks. Here, we propose that personality neuroscience can be advanced by adding a network perspective on brain structure and function, an endeavor that we label personality network neuroscience.With the rise of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the establishment of connectomics as a theoretical framework for structural and functional connectivity modeling, and recent advancements in the application of mathematical graph theory to brain connectivity data, several new tools and techniques are readily available to be applied in personality neuroscience. The present contribution introduces these concepts, reviews recent progress in their application to the study of individual differences, and explores their potential to advance our understanding of the neural implementation of personality.Trait theorists have long argued that personality traits are biophysical entities that are not mere abstractions of and metaphors for human behavior. Traits are thought to actually exist in the brain, presumably in the form of conceptual nervous systems. A conceptual nervous system refers to the attempt to describe parts of the central nervous system in functional terms with relevance to psychology and behavior. We contend that personality network neuroscience can characterize these conceptual nervous systems on a functional and anatomical level and has the potential do link dispositional neural correlates to actual behavior.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-40
Author(s):  
Neriman Aral

From the moment the child is born, learning becomes meaningful and it is interpreted as a result of the experiences first in the family and then in school. However, it is sometimes not possible to talk about the fact that learning takes place in all children although the process has taken place in this direction. Sometimes the individual differences that exist in children and the inability to get the necessary support in structuring their learning experiences can be effective in the failure of learning, while sometimes the type of congenital difficulty can be effective. One of these types of difficulty is a specific learning difficulty. It is not always possible for children with specific learning difficulties to learn, even if they do not have any mental problems. In this case, many factors can be effective, especially the problems that children experience in their visual perception can become effective. Since visual perception is the processing of symbols received from the environment in the brain, the problem that may be experienced in this process can also make it difficult to learn this situation. In line with these considerations, it is aimed to focus on the importance of visual perception in specific learning difficulties.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongya Wu ◽  
Xin Li ◽  
Jun Feng

Brain connectivity plays an important role in determining the brain region’s function. Previous researchers proposed that the brain region’s function is characterized by that region’s input and output connectivity profiles. Following this proposal, numerous studies have investigated the relationship between connectivity and function. However, this proposal only utilizes direct connectivity profiles and thus is deficient in explaining individual differences in the brain region’s function. To overcome this problem, we proposed that a brain region’s function is characterized by that region’s multi-hops connectivity profile. To test this proposal, we used multi-hops functional connectivity to predict the individual face activation of the right fusiform face area (rFFA) via a multi-layer graph neural network and showed that the prediction performance is essentially improved. Results also indicated that the two-layer graph neural network is the best in characterizing rFFA’s face activation and revealed a hierarchical network for the face processing of rFFA.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (t1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shree Harsh ◽  
Surendra B. Patil

<p>Lasers have a number of clinical applications on the face, ranging from aesthetic uses such as the rejuvenation of ageing face to functional ones such as the correction of bleeding vascular malformations. The vast growing uses of lasers on the face emphasises the need to have knowledge of the subject. Though the vast spectrum of lasers is very difficult to compile in an article, the authors give an overview of the application of lasers in the facial region and discuss the most defining treatment of the individual disease processes.</p>


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuben Moreton ◽  
Ailsa Strathie ◽  
Catriona Havard ◽  
Graham Pike

Face matching decisions in applied settings, such as policing, forensics and immigration services, are typically carried out by two types of professionals; facial reviewers and facial examiners. Studies have demonstrated large individual differences in the face matching accuracy of both facial reviewers and examiners. Whether variances in training between agencies could be in part responsible for these individual differences is not currently known. Despite the existence of high-level training guidelines produced by the practitioner community the content, duration and delivery of face matching training is not widely understood in the academic research community. The current study aimed to address this gap in the scientific literature and to better understand how different agencies train facial reviewers and facial examiners, using results collected from an international survey. At the group level facial examiners received longer durations of training, covering more topics and with greater inclusion of mentoring than facial reviewers. However, the survey revealed large differences in the duration, delivery methods and content of training by individual agencies at both the facial review and facial examiner level and low inclusion of evidence-based training practices. These results should help researchers to better understand the diversity in training practices and durations of training between different agencies and may help explain the individual differences observed in the performance of face matching professionals in the literature.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-42
Author(s):  
V.A. Barabanschikov ◽  
A.V. Zhegallo ◽  
Y.N. Smolny ◽  
M.M. Marinova

This study the role of emotional expressions of the sitter’s face in the perception of his personality traits. The scores given by observers on the scales of the “Personality Differential” for images of a calm face and the face of the same sitter, demonstrating six basic emotions, were compared. Forty-nine photographic images of the emotional states of seven sitters included in the RaFD database were used as stimulus material. A total of 193 Moscow university students (66 men and 127 women, mean age 23.3 years) participated in the experiment. A 17% statistically significant change in personality scores was recorded, two-thirds of which tended toward the positive poles of the scales. Changing perceptions of a person’s personality suggests a coherent relationship between emotion modality and personality traits. Each basic expression influences a specific group of 10-15 traits, and in different ways. Each trait relies on an affective configuration with its own specificity. Disgust has the maximum integrative influence on the view of the sitter’s personality. Joy causes extremely high positive changes, while sadness and astonishment cause moderate, symmetrical changes in the ratio of positive and negative shifts. Fear and anger lead to an equilibrium of positive and negative evaluations. The highest volume of trait changes is obtained for the “Activity” factor (A), which is associated mainly with positive shifts, the lowest volume is for the “Evaluation” factor (E), which is, together with the “Strength” factor (S), the main source of negative changes in the sitters’ perception. The volume of affective feature shifts is determined by the morphotype of the face and the individual stylistics of emotion expression. In everyday life, the possibility of affective changes in traits does not violate the general invariance of interpersonal perception.


2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 182-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Virgil Zeigler-Hill ◽  
Avi Besser ◽  
Sinead Cronin ◽  
Jennifer K. Vrabel

Recent research has highlighted important individual differences in moral judgment. The present study extends these findings by examining the associations between pathological personality traits and utilitarian moral judgments. This was accomplished by asking 2,121 Israeli community members to complete self-report measures concerning their pathological personality traits and evaluate the acceptability of utilitarian moral judgments in various sacrificial dilemmas (is it acceptable to intentionally kill one person in order to save several other people?). The results showed that the pathological personality traits of antagonism and disinhibition were positively associated with the endorsement of personal utilitarian moral judgments (i.e., those decisions requiring the individual to directly inflict harm on the would-be sacrificed individual), whereas negative affectivity was negatively associated with personal utilitarian moral judgments. Antagonism was the only pathological personality trait associated with impersonal utilitarian moral judgments (i.e., those decisions that did not require the individual to directly inflict harm on the would-be sacrificed individual). Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for understanding the associations between pathological personality traits and moral judgments.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yijie Zhao ◽  
Shuguang Kuai ◽  
Theodore P. Zanto ◽  
Yixuan Ku

AbstractThe neural mechanisms associated with the limited capacity of working memory has long been studied, but it is still unclear how the brain maintains the fidelity of representations in working memory. Here, an orientation recall task for estimating the precision of visual working memory was performed both inside and outside an fMRI scanner. Results showed that the trial-by-trial recall error (in radians) was correlated with delay period activity in the lateral occipital complex (LOC) during working memory maintenance, regardless of the memory load. Moreover, delay activity in LOC also correlated with the individual participant’s precision of working memory from a separate behavioral experiment held two weeks prior. Furthermore, a region within the prefrontal cortex, the inferior frontal junction (IFJ), exhibited greater functional connectivity with LOC when the working memory load increased. Together, our findings provide unique evidence that the LOC supports visual working memory precision, while communication between the IFJ and LOC varys with visual working memory load.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kadi Tulver ◽  
Jaan Aru ◽  
Renate Rutiku ◽  
Talis Bachmann

AbstractThe present study investigated individual differences in how much subjects rely on prior information, such as expectations or knowledge, when faced with perceptual ambiguity. The behavioural performance of forty-four participants was measured on four different visual paradigms (Mooney face recognition, illusory contours, blur detection and representational momentum) in which priors have been shown to affect perception. In addition, questionnaires were used to measure autistic and schizotypal traits in the non-clinical population. We hypothesized that someone who in the face of ambiguous or noisy perceptual input relies heavily on priors, would exhibit this tendency across a variety of tasks. This general pattern would then be reflected in high pairwise correlations between the behavioural measures and an emerging common factor. On the contrary, our results imply that there is no single factor that explains the individual differences present in the aforementioned tasks, as further evidenced by the overall lack of robust correlations between the separate paradigms. Instead, a two-factor structure reflecting differences in the hierarchy of perceptual processing was the best fit for explaining the individual variance in these tasks. This lends support to the notion that mechanisms underlying the effects of priors likely originate from several independent sources and that it is important to consider the role of specific tasks and stimuli more carefully when reporting effects of priors on perception.


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