Monkeys see faces in objects too

• Autores: Helen Thomson
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3141, 2017, pág. 10
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Pareidolia is the scientific term for erroneously perceiving faces where none exist. To investigate whether pareidolia is a uniquely human experience or one other primates might share, Jessica Taubert at the US National Institute of Mental Health in Maryland and her colleagues trained five rhesus macaques to stare at pairs of photos. Each image showed either an inanimate object that prompts pareidolia in humans, an equivalent object that doesn't, or the face of a monkey. The monkeys did indeed seem to succumb to pareidolia--they spent more time looking at illusory faces than the non-illusory photos they were presented alongside. Interestingly, they also spent more time looking at the illusory faces than the monkey faces, perhaps because they needed to study these more unusual "faces" more, or because they tend to dislike holding the gaze of another monkey.