Absorption relates to individual differences in visual face pareidolia

Visual face pareidolia is the experience of perceiving illusory faces in inanimate objects (e.g., rocks, buildings, appliances); however, the individual differences that relate to these pareidolia experiences remain unclear. The present set of studies assessed individual differences in face pareidolia, with a particular emphasis on personality factors previously associated with changes in perceptual experiences (openness and absorption). Study 1 measured face pareidolia in two novel ways: an implicit, speeded visual categorization task, and a self-report measure. Study 2 measured face pareidolia using more explicit categorization tasks and a slightly modified version of the self-report measure from Study 1. Across both studies, we also measured the Big Five personality dimensions, absorption, and a performance-based measure of divergent association formation, a proxy for creativity. We found that absorption was positively associated with individual differences in face pareidolia. The association between absorption and face pareidolia remained significant when controlling for factors that also positively correlated with absorption (openness, extraversion, and positive mood). Taken together, these results suggest that individual differences in face pareidolia experiences are consistently associated with absorption, which represents an especially promising construct to investigate in future pareidolia research.