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Study of face pareidolia reveals gender bias in the way we see faces in everyday objects
If you've ever imagined that you could see a face staring at you from a slice of Swiss cheese, you've experienced a phenomenon known as face pareidolia.
That's the scientific name for seeing faces in everyday objects such as food, clouds or plants.
Now, new research has revealed that when people experience face pareidolia, most visualise a young male face.
The study may help explain why there is a man, not a woman, in the moon or why Jesus appears in toasted sandwiches more often than Mary.
The research, published in the academic journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined the response of more than 3,800 people to a series of images of inanimate objects - some with obvious faces in them, some without.