When you look at clouds, tree bark, or the front of a car, do you sometimes see a face staring back at you? This phenomenon, known as “face pareidolia,” is a common illusion where our brains detect faces in patterns that aren’t actually faces. For most people, these illusions are harmless. However, new research published in Perception suggests that individuals with visual snow syndrome—a rare neurological condition characterized by constant “visual static”—experience this phenomenon more intensely and frequently.
This discovery provides a unique perspective on how an overactive brain may amplify the erroneous patterns it perceives in the world. It also underscores the notion that perception is not a perfect reflection of reality.
Understanding Visual Snow Syndrome
Visual snow syndrome is marked by the persistent perception of flickering dots, akin to television static, across the entire field of vision. Individuals with this condition often report that these dots never disappear, even in darkness. The cause of this syndrome remains elusive, but recent evidence suggests hyperexcitability in the visual cortex, the brain region responsible for interpreting visual stimuli. Essentially, neurons tasked with processing visual information may be firing excessively, inundating perception with noise.
Many individuals with visual snow syndrome also experience migraines, light sensitivity, afterimages, or visual trails that linger after motion. These symptoms can render everyday visual experiences confusing and exhausting. Despite increasing awareness, the condition remains under-diagnosed and poorly understood.
Testing the Impact of Visual Snow on Perception
To investigate whether this hyperactive visual system alters how people interpret ambiguous visual input, a research team conducted an online experiment with over 250 volunteers. Participants first completed a brief questionnaire to determine if they experienced symptoms of visual snow. They were then shown 320 images of everyday objects, ranging from tree trunks to cups of coffee, and asked to rate, on a scale from 0 to 100, how easily they could discern a face in each image.
In total, 132 participants met the criteria for visual snow syndrome, while 104 formed a control group matched for age. The study also tracked whether participants experienced migraines, allowing for comparisons across four subgroups.
The Brain That Sees Too Much
The results were striking. Individuals with visual snow consistently assigned higher “face scores” to each image compared to those without the condition. This suggests they were more prone to seeing faces in random textures and objects. Those with both visual snow and migraines scored highest of all.
The visual snow group reported seeing illusory faces more vividly, indicating a stronger illusion triggered by the same objects.
This pattern aligns with earlier theories that the visual snow brain is hyper-responsive. Typically, our visual system generates quick, low-level “guesses” about what we’re seeing, followed by slower checks to confirm those guesses. When this feedback loop is disrupted by excessive neural activity, an early “false alarm,” such as mistaking an object for a face, may be amplified rather than corrected.
The Migraine Connection
Migraine and visual snow have frequently been linked, both involving abnormally high levels of cortical activity. During a migraine, visual neurons can become hypersensitive to flicker, light, and contrast. The data suggest that when migraine and visual snow occur together, the brain’s sensitivity to illusory faces increases even further. This may reflect a shared neural pathway underlying both conditions.
Future research could leverage this relationship to develop new diagnostic tools. Face pareidolia tests are quick, accessible, and could be adapted for children or nonverbal patients who can’t easily describe what they see.
A New Perspective on Perception
Face pareidolia isn’t a disorder—it’s a byproduct of a perceptual system that prioritizes social information. Evolution has biased our visual system to spot faces first and ask questions later. For people with visual snow, that system may be dialed up too high. Their brains may “connect the dots” in visual noise, interpreting ambiguous input as meaningful patterns.
This finding supports the idea that visual snow is not just a vision problem but a broader disturbance in how the brain interprets visual input. By understanding why some people see too much, we can learn more about how all of us perceive the world.
Why It Matters
Visual snow syndrome is often dismissed or misdiagnosed, leaving patients frustrated. Linking the condition to a measurable illusion such as face pareidolia provides clinicians with a tangible sign of the altered brain activity behind the symptoms. It also humanizes the experience. People with visual snow aren’t imagining their perceptions—their brains are genuinely processing the world differently.
Beyond diagnosis, this research contributes to a larger question in neuroscience: how does the brain balance sensitivity and accuracy? Too little activity, and we miss the signal. Too much, and we start to see faces in the snow.
Jessica Taubert, Associate Professor, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland
