Congratulations to my PhD student, Christopher Buckland, who was recently interviewed by The Economist about his innovative work on studying face perception in naturalistic contexts.

We agree - naturalistic experiments are (and should be) all the rage!

www.economist.com/science-and-...

Excited to have this one out! We found that the perception of illusory faces relies on parallel brain representations of faces and objects with different dynamics, enabling flexible behaviour.

Job alert! The Psychology Department at NDSU is hiring a tenure-track assistant professor in Developmental Psychology, broadly defined. Please share widely & if you (or students/post-docs) have questions about the dept., about Fargo, or anything else please be in touch. #PsychSciSky #VisionScience

EEG shows illusory faces in objects initially resemble real faces then shift to object-like representations, with task demands determining which identity guides behavior.
@amandakrobinson.bsky.social @jesstaubert.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

People perceive illusory faces, but task demands decide whether they’re treated more like faces or objects. Early brain signals aligned with face perception, later activity with object perception. The brain maintains parallel representations, enabling flexible responses to visual stimuli.

Delighted to share our latest paper in Communications Psychology on face pareidolia.

doi.org/10.1038/s442...

🧠📣 New deadline! Submissions to our Scientific Reports special issue on Face Recognition & Prosopagnosia are now open until July 26, 2025.

We're looking for cutting-edge work on the neural and cognitive basis of face perception—both typical and impaired.

🔗 www.nature.com/collections/...

🧵 New paper alert! Ever wondered if a naturalistic smile grabs your attention just as fast as a posed one?

We tested how quickly people look toward happy, neutral, and threatening faces—using real-world vs staged expressions.

Spoiler: naturalistic faces are powerful.
👇

Natalie employed our TrackPixx3 eye tracker driven by PTB - many thanks to the team @vpixx.bsky.social and @psychtoolbox.bsky.social

Two more days until our workshop 🥳@cosynemeeting.bsky.social #Cosyne2025

Object-centric neural representations across species 🐒🐁🕷️🐝🖥️

Check out our homepage: toliaslab.org/workshop/cos...

Excellent speakers include @dyamins.bsky.social @hansopdebeeck.bsky.social & many more 🙌

Ostracism affects children’s behavioral reactivity and gaze cueing of attention #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1371/jour...

..”the truest test of scientific wits is agility”

undark.org/2025/03/06/o...

Our latest study in JEPHPP explores how we detect #facepareidolia under different task demands. Results like these keep providing clues that we are equipped to build multiple representations in parallel to flexibly support a diverse range of behavioural goals.

psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/...

Join us for the CAJAL NeuroAI summer course in Lisbon July 14-Aug 1. We have a great line-up of speakers from a diverse range of topics across NeuroAI. Check out our website for more details and help us spread the word: cajal-training.org/on-site/neur...

Applications are due March 7!

No apologies necessary - good question. In terms of the species we know that they orient to face-like patterns and illusory faces (like real faces). We also know other face patches and structures respond similarly to real and illusory faces. Like I said, it’s just not simple.

Here, Koyano et al. show that 🐒 neurons in certain face patches barely react to pareidolia (illusory faces in objects).
doi.org/10.1016/j.pn...

To those who have argued that the brain "obviously" processes stimuli that look like faces as faces—it's not that simple.

A happy face advantage for pareidolic faces in children and adults doi.org/10.1016/j.je...

In this new perspective piece, we argue for an alternative framework of visual function in occipitotemporal cortex that prioritizes the behavioral relevance of visual properties in real-world environments.