Researchers have figured out why there's a man who lives in the moon.
The man does not actually exist, but there is an explanation for why humans think they see a face when looking at the moon or other inanimate objects, according to new research published in the journal Cortex's April issue.
Whenever a person expects to see a face, it affects a certain region of the brain responsible for processing faces, thus making objects like a regular piece of toast appear to have the face of Jesus, Live Science reported. This process is known as "face pareidolia."
Researchers from the University of Toronto and China were able to study the process by asking 20 Chinese men to see if they saw faces or letters that were hidden within a white noise background, like the black and white granular display of a TV.
Two images were the faces of men, with one being easier to spot than the other, Live Science reported. Two other images showed letters with one also easier to see than the other. The last image was regular white noise.
The men viewed the images while inside a machine that measured which area of the brain was receiving the most amount of blood at a particular moment, indicating high neuron activity, Live Science reported.
In a second test, the men were asked to determine if they saw faces or letters in another set of images, but researchers did not put any images in the empty backgrounds.
The results showed that 34 percent of the men said they saw faces and 38 percent said they saw letters when nothing was really there. This indicates that just the expectation of seeing an image creates one, Live Science reported.
Researchers were also able to confirm that a small area of the brain located behind the ear aids in facial recognition. Called the fusiform face area, a person is able to trigger that region just by believing they see a face.
