Face pareidolia minimally engages macaque face selective neurons

Abstract

The macaque cerebral cortex contains concentrations of neurons that prefer faces over inanimate objects. Although these so-called face patches are thought to be specialized for the analysis of facial signals, their exact tuning properties remain unclear. For example, what happens when an object by chance resembles a face? Everyday objects can sometimes, through the accidental positioning of their internal components, appear as faces. This phenomenon is known as face pareidolia. Behavioral experiments have suggested that macaques, like humans, perceive illusory faces in such objects. However, it is an open question whether such stimuli would naturally stimulate neurons residing in cortical face patches. To address this question, we recorded single unit activity from four fMRI-defined face-selective regions: the anterior medial (AM), anterior fundus (AF), prefrontal orbital (PO), and perirhinal cortex (PRh) face patches. We compared neural responses elicited by images of real macaque faces, pareidolia-evoking objects, and matched control objects. Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence of a general preference for pareidolia-evoking objects over control objects. Although a subset of neurons exhibited stronger responses to pareidolia-evoking objects, the population responses to both categories of objects were similar, and collectively much less than to real macaque faces. These results suggest that neural responses in the four regions we tested are principally concerned with the analysis of realistic facial characteristics, whereas the special attention afforded to face-like pareidolia stimuli is supported by activity elsewhere in the brain.