Face Pareidolia: Why Seeing Jesus in Toast Is Normal
Author: University of Toronto
Published: 2014/05/07 - Updated: 2026/01/23
Publication Type: Informative
Category Topic: Offbeat News - Related Publications
Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Insights, Updates
Synopsis: This research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Cortex, presents findings from a collaborative study by the University of Toronto and Chinese research institutions examining the neural basis of face pareidolia through brain imaging and behavioral analysis. The work demonstrates scientifically that perceiving faces in random patterns - whether mythical religious figures in food or features in clouds - stems from typical brain function rather than psychological disorder, making it particularly relevant for people who may have been dismissed or stigmatized for reporting such experiences. Understanding this phenomenon helps validate the perceptual experiences of individuals across all populations, including older adults and those with cognitive differences, by establishing that the brain's face-recognition systems naturally activate even when presented with minimal facial cues - Disabled World (DW).
- Definition: Pareidolia
Pareidolia is the psychological phenomenon where people perceive meaningful patterns, images, or sounds in random or ambiguous stimuli. Most commonly, this involves seeing faces in everyday objects - like spotting a man in the moon, Jesus on a piece of toast, or a screaming face in an electrical outlet. The tendency is hardwired into human cognition because our brains evolved to rapidly detect faces, particularly human faces, as a survival mechanism. This facial recognition system is so sensitive that it often fires even when no actual face exists, leading us to find faces in clouds, rock formations, stains on walls, and countless other unlikely places. While pareidolia isn't limited to visual experiences - people also report hearing hidden messages in reversed audio or recognizing patterns in white noise - the visual form, especially involving faces, remains the most common and widely recognized manifestation of this quirk of human perception.
Introduction
People who claim to see "Jesus in toast" may no longer be mocked in the future thanks to a new study by researchers at the University of Toronto and partner institutions in China.
Researchers have found that the phenomenon of "face pareidolia" - where onlookers report seeing images of Jesus, Virgin Mary, or Elvis in objects such as toasts, shrouds, and clouds - is normal and based on physical causes.
Main Content
What is Pareidolia?
Pareidolia is defined as the tendency for incorrect perception of a stimulus as an object, pattern or meaning known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or hearing hidden messages in music. Pareidolia was at one time considered a symptom of psychosis, but it is now seen as a normal human tendency. The Rorschach inkblot test uses pareidolia in an attempt to gain insight into a person's mental state. Pareidolia is also what some skeptics believe causes people to believe that they have seen ghosts.
"Most people think you have to be mentally abnormal to see these types of images, so individuals reporting this phenomenon are often ridiculed", says lead researcher Prof. Kang Lee of the University of Toronto's Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study.
"But our findings suggest that it's common for people to see non-existent features because human brains are uniquely wired to recognize faces, so that even when there's only a slight suggestion of facial features the brain automatically interprets it as a face," said Lee.
Although this phenomenon has been known for centuries, little is understood about the underlying neural mechanisms that cause it.
The Study
In the first study of its kind, researchers studied brain scans and behavioral responses to individuals seeing faces and letters in different patterns. They discovered face pareidolia isn't due to a brain anomaly or imagination but is caused by the combined work of the frontal cortex which helps generate expectations and sends signals to the posterior visual cortex to enhance the interpretation stimuli from the outside world.
Researchers also found that people can be led to see different images - such as faces or words or letters - depending on what they expect to see, which in turn activates specific parts of the brain that process such images.
Seeing "Jesus in toast" reflects our brain's normal functioning and the active role that the frontal cortex plays in visual perception. Instead of the phrase "seeing is believing" the results suggest that "believing is seeing."
The research was undertaken by researchers from the University of Toronto, Beijing Jiaotong University, Xidian University, and the Institute of Automation Chinese Academy of Sciences. The findings were published in the journal Cortex.
Insights, Analysis, and Developments
Editorial Note: The shift from viewing pareidolia as pathological to understanding it as a feature of normal brain architecture represents an important milestone in neuroscience and public perception. What people once ridiculed as evidence of instability now stands revealed as a testament to the human brain's sophisticated pattern-recognition capabilities - a reminder that unusual perceptual experiences often reflect the extraordinary ways our minds make sense of an ambiguous world rather than deficits requiring correction - Disabled World (DW).Attribution/Source(s): This quality-reviewed publication was selected for publishing by the editors of Disabled World (DW) due to its relevance to the disability community. Originally authored by University of Toronto and published on 2014/05/07, this content may have been edited for style, clarity, or brevity.