When you gaze at clouds, tree bark, or even the front of a car, do you sometimes perceive 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. While typically harmless, 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 insight into how an overactive brain may amplify illusory patterns it perceives in the world, highlighting that perception is not always 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. For those affected, these dots are omnipresent, even in darkness. The exact 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 overactive, inundating perception with noise.
Many individuals with visual snow syndrome also report migraines, light sensitivity, and afterimages or visual trails that linger post-motion. These symptoms can render everyday visual experiences both confusing and exhausting. Despite increasing awareness, the condition remains under-diagnosed and poorly understood.
Testing Perceptual Changes
To explore whether this hyperactive visual system alters how individuals interpret ambiguous visual input, our research team conducted an online experiment with over 250 volunteers. Participants first completed a questionnaire to ascertain if they experienced symptoms of visual snow. They were then shown 320 images of everyday objects, ranging from tree trunks to coffee cups, 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. We also monitored whether participants experienced migraines, enabling us to compare across four subgroups.
The Brain That Sees Too Much
The findings were striking. Individuals with visual snow consistently assigned higher “face scores” to each image compared to those without the condition, indicating a greater propensity to perceive faces in random textures and objects. Those with both visual snow and migraines scored the highest of all.
This pattern was remarkably consistent; while the groups generally agreed on which images resembled faces the most, the visual snow group reported seeing illusory faces more vividly. In essence, the same objects triggered a stronger illusion.
The results align with earlier theories that the visual snow brain is hyper-responsive, suggesting that excessive neural activity may amplify early “false alarms,” such as mistaking an object for a face.
The Migraine Connection
Migraine and visual snow have been frequently linked, with both involving abnormally high levels of cortical activity. During a migraine, visual neurons can become hypersensitive to flicker, light, and contrast. Our data suggest that when migraine and visual snow co-occur, the brain’s sensitivity to illusory faces increases even further, potentially reflecting 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 cannot easily articulate their visual experiences.
A New Perspective on Perception
Face pareidolia is not a disorder; rather, it is a byproduct of a perceptual system that prioritizes social information. Evolution has predisposed our visual system to detect faces first and ask questions later. For individuals with visual snow, this system may be overly active, causing their brains to “connect the dots” in visual noise and interpret ambiguous input as meaningful patterns.
This finding supports the notion that visual snow is not merely a vision problem but a broader disturbance in how the brain interprets visual input.
By understanding why some people see too much, we can gain insights into how all of us perceive the world.
The Importance of Recognition
Visual snow syndrome is often dismissed or misdiagnosed, leaving patients frustrated. Linking the condition to a measurable illusion like face pareidolia provides clinicians with a tangible sign of the altered brain activity underlying the symptoms. It also humanizes the experience, affirming that people with visual snow are not imagining their perceptions—their brains genuinely process the world differently.
Beyond diagnosis, this research contributes to a broader 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.
As Jessica Taubert, Associate Professor at the School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, notes, “By understanding why some people see too much, we can learn more about how all of us see at all.”
