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If you have a look at clouds, tree bark, or the entrance of a automobile, do you typically see a face staring again at you? That is “face pareidolia” and it’s a completely regular phantasm the place our brains spot faces in patterns that are not truly faces.
For many of us, these illusions are innocent. However my new analysis, printed in Notion, suggests folks with visible snow syndrome—a uncommon neurological situation that causes fixed “visual static”—expertise this phenomenon extra strongly and extra typically.
This discovering provides a novel window into how an overactive mind could amplify the inaccurate illusory patterns it sees on this planet. It additionally exhibits how notion is not an ideal mirror of actuality.
What’s visible snow syndrome?
Visible snow syndrome is characterised by the persistent notion of flickering dots, like tv static, throughout all the sight view. Folks with the situation typically report the dots by no means go away, even at nighttime.
The reason for this syndrome stays unclear, however latest proof factors to hyperexcitability within the visible cortex, the area of the mind that interprets what we see. In essence, the neurons chargeable for processing visible data could also be firing too readily, flooding notion with noise.
Many people with visible snow syndrome additionally expertise migraines, mild sensitivity, afterimages or visible trails that linger after movement. These signs could make on a regular basis visible experiences complicated and exhausting. But, regardless of rising consciousness, the situation stays under-diagnosed and poorly understood.
Testing how ‘visible snow’ shapes notion
To check whether or not this hyperactive visible system modifications how folks interpret ambiguous visible enter, our analysis group invited greater than 250 volunteers to finish a web-based experiment.
Contributors first accomplished a brief questionnaire to find out whether or not they skilled signs of visible snow. They had been then proven 320 photos of on a regular basis objects, from tree trunks to cups of espresso, and requested to charge, on a scale from 0 to 100, how simply they might see a face in every picture.
In complete, 132 folks met the factors for visible snow syndrome, whereas 104 fashioned a management group matched for age. We additionally tracked whether or not individuals skilled migraines, permitting us to match 4 subgroups.
The mind that sees an excessive amount of
The outcomes had been hanging. Folks with visible snow constantly gave larger “face scores” to every picture than these with out the situation. This implies they had been extra prone to see faces in random textures and objects.
These with each visible snow and migraines scored highest of all.
This sample was remarkably constant. Generally, the teams agreed on which photos appeared most like faces, however the visible snow group reported seeing illusory faces extra vividly.
In different phrases, the identical objects triggered a stronger phantasm.
The outcomes align with earlier theories that the visible snow mind is hyper-responsive. Usually, our visible system generates fast, low-level “guesses” about what we’re seeing, adopted by slower checks to substantiate these guesses.
When that suggestions loop is disrupted by extreme neural exercise, an early “false alarm,” resembling mistaking an object for a face, could also be amplified fairly than corrected.
Why migraine makes it stronger
Migraine and visible snow have been incessantly linked, and each contain abnormally excessive ranges of cortical exercise. Throughout a migraine, visible neurons can develop into hypersensitive to flicker, mild and distinction.
Our knowledge counsel that when migraine and visible snow happen collectively, the mind’s sensitivity to illusory faces will increase even additional. This may occasionally mirror a shared neural pathway underlying each situations.
Future analysis may use this relationship to develop new diagnostic instruments. Face pareidolia exams are fast, accessible, and could possibly be tailored for kids or nonverbal sufferers who cannot simply describe what they see.
A brand new approach to perceive notion
Face pareidolia is not a dysfunction—it is a facet impact of a perceptual system that prioritizes social data. Evolution has biased our visible system to identify faces first and ask questions later.
For folks with visible snow, that system could also be dialed up too excessive. Their brains could “connect the dots” in visible noise, decoding ambiguous enter as significant patterns.
This discovering helps the concept that visible snow is not only a imaginative and prescient downside however a broader disturbance in how the mind interprets visible enter.
By understanding why some folks see an excessive amount of, we will study extra about how all of us see in any respect.
Why it issues
Visible snow syndrome is usually dismissed or misdiagnosed, leaving sufferers pissed off. Linking the situation to a measurable phantasm resembling face pareidolia provides clinicians a tangible signal of the altered mind exercise behind the signs.
It additionally humanizes the expertise. Folks with visible snow aren’t imagining their perceptions—their brains are genuinely processing the world in another way.
Past prognosis, this analysis contributes to a much bigger query in neuroscience: how does the mind strike a stability between sensitivity and accuracy? Too little exercise, and we miss the sign. An excessive amount of, and we begin to see faces within the snow.
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Folks with this uncommon visible situation see illusory faces extra typically, new examine exhibits (2025, October 30)
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