People with a rare neurological condition that causes constant “visual noise” see flickering dots that never disappear, even in the dark — and identify illusory faces more often.
When we look at the clouds, the bark of a tree or the front of a car, we sometimes see a face looking back at us.
This is “” — a perfectly normal illusion in which the brain identifies faces in patterns which, in fact, are not. For most people, These illusions are harmless.
However, a new one, recently published in Perceptionsuggests that people with “visual snow syndrome“, a rare neurological condition that causes constant “visual noise”, experience this phenomenon more intensely and frequent.
This discovery offers a unique insight into how an overactive brain can amplify erroneous illusory patterns it perceives in the world, and also demonstrates that the perception is not a perfect reflection of reality, explains Jessica Taubert, researcher at the University of Queensland and lead author of the study, in an article in .
The so-called “visual snow syndrome” is characterized by the persistent perception of flickering dots, similar to television staticacross the entire field of view. People with this condition often report that these spots never disappear, even in the dark.
A cause of the syndrome is still unclearbut recent evidence points to a hyperexcitability of the visual cortexthe area of the brain responsible for interpreting what we see. In essence, the neurons responsible for visual processing may be firing in excess, flooding perception with noise.
Many individuals with visual snow syndrome also feel migrainesphotosensitivity, residual images or visual trails that remain after the movement.
These symptoms can make confusing everyday visual experiences and strenuous. Although awareness of this condition is increasing, it remains subdiagnosticada and little understood.
To understand whether this overactive visual system changes the way people interpret ambiguous visual stimuli, the study authors invited more than 250 volunteers to participate in an online experiment.
Participants first completed a brief questionnaire to determine if they had symptoms of visual snow.
Then, they viewed 320 images of everyday objectsfrom tree trunks to coffee cups, and were asked to rate, on a scale of 0 to 100, how easily they could identify a face in each image.
Not totally, 132 people met the criteria for visual snow syndrome, while 104 constituted an age-matched control group. It was also analyzed whether participants suffered from migraines, which allowed four subgroups to be compared.
The results were remarkable. People with visual snow consistently attributed higher facial ratings for all images than those who did not have the condition. This suggests a greater propensity to see faces on random textures and objects.
Those who suffered from visual snow and migraines simultaneously had the highest ratings.
This pattern turned out to be remarkably consistent. Generally speaking, the groups agreed on the images that most resembled faces, but the visual snow group reported seeing illusory faces more vividly. In other words, the same objects caused a most intense illusion.
The results are in line with previous theorieswhich suggest that the visual snow brain is hyper-responsive. Typically, the visual system generates quick, basic “guesses” about what it’s seeing, followed by slower checks to confirm those guesses.
When this feedback loop is disturbed by excessive neural activityan early “false alarm” — like mistaking an object for a face — may be amplified rather than corrected.
A pareidolia facial It’s not a disorder — it’s a side effect of a perceptual system that privileges social information. Evolution has made people’s visual systems prioritize detecting faces, asking questions afterwards.
In the case of people with visual snow, this system may be excessively “upregulated”. Their brains tend to “connect the dots” in visual noise, interpreting ambiguous stimuli as meaningful patterns.
This finding reinforces the idea that visual snow is not just a vision problem, but a wider disruption in the way the brain interprets visual input. By understanding why some people see too much, it is possible to learn more about perception in general.
Visual snow syndrome is often undervalued or misdiagnosedleaving patients frustrated. Associating the condition with a measurable illusion, such as facial pareidolia, offers clinicians a concrete sign of the altered brain activity that underlies the symptoms.
This approach also humanizes the experience. Visually impaired people are not imagining their perceptions — their brains are actually processing the world differently.
In addition to diagnosis, this investigation contributes to a larger question in neuroscience: How does the brain find balance? between sensitivity and precision? If the activity is insufficient, the signal is lost. If it is excessive, you start to see faces in the snow.
