Face pareidolia: People 'assume imaginary faces are males', says study

What a cheesy smile this grate face is wearing

Have you ever seen a face in a piece of toast? Or been convinced there is a face in a cloud?

It's called face pareidolia (you say it 'pa-ray-doy-lee-ah'), which is when the brain tries to make sense of things and makes you see images that are not actually there.

Scientists have now shown that when we see faces in things, we are far more likely to see them as male.

In experiments with over 3,800 US adults online, participants looked at about 250 photos of illusory faces — in objects from potatoes to suitcases — and labelled each one as male, female or neutral.

Faces were called male about four times as often as they were female.

Dough you see a face in this piece of bread?

About 80 percent of people, both male and female, labelled more images male than female.

Only 3 percent judged more images to be female than male.

Study author Susan Wardle, a cognitive neuroscientist from Maryland, USA, says that assuming something is male is not restricted to imagined faces.

Even emojis are assumed to be male unless they have extra features to make them 'look female', scientists Susan Wardle says

She says to see something as female people often need more visual details like eyelashes or long hair and that is used in things like Lego figures and emojis to show the difference.

It's not yet clear why this is, but in another study school kids as young as five showed the same gender bias, suggesting it's something that we start doing early on.

Do you see faces in unexpected places, leave a comment below.