People tend to see faces from non-face objects or meaningless patterns. Such illusory face perception is called face pareidolia. Previous studies have revealed an interesting fact that there are huge individual differences in face pareidolia experience among the population. Here, we review previous findings on individual differences in face pareidolia experience from four categories: sex differences, developmental factors, personality traits and neurodevelopmental factors. We further discuss underlying cognitive or neural mechanisms to explain why some perceive the objects as faces while others do not. The individual differences in face pareidolia could not only offer scientific insights on how the brain works to process face information, but also suggest potential clinical applications.

人们倾向于从非面部对象或无意义的图案中看到面部。这种虚幻的面部感知能力被称为面部pareidolia。先前的研究揭示了一个有趣的事实，即人群中面部pareidolia体验存在巨大的个体差异。在这里，我们回顾以前关于面部pareidolia经验的个人差异的发现，该差异来自四个类别：性别差异，发育因素，人格特质和神经发育因素。我们将进一步讨论潜在的认知或神经机制，以解释为什么有些人将物体感知为面孔而另一些人却没有感知。面部pareidolia的个体差异不仅可以提供关于大脑如何处理面部信息的科学见解，还可以提出潜在的临床应用。