A child suddenly awakes and screams when he sees a pair of eyes staring at him. The parents hearing the commotion run to comfort him. When he looks closely, he realizes he was just scared by a desk lamp.

This bizarre scenario seems to come straight out of a horror movie, but it is not uncommon for all people to perceive faces in daily inanimate objects. This phenomenon is called pareidolia. But why do some people perceive faces differently? Can the study of pareidolia help explain our unconscious biases and provide a solution for today’s divisiveness?

Scientists can use pareidolia to understand better how the brain processes information that leads to biases. Dr. Jessica Taubert from the University of Queensland’s School of Psychology gathered over 3,800 participants to look at 256 images of inanimate objects that appeared to have faces. They were asked to identify the gender and age of the objects and describe any emotions they conveyed. The participants perceived that more than 80% of the objects had some degree of masculinity. Despite having an equal number of male and female subjects, more saw masculine features, suggesting that both sexes shared bias.

The pictures that were perceived as female had obvious feminine characteristics, which means that the human brain may have a specific way of processing limited information because the objects without that extra “feminine” information were categorized more often as “male.” This perhaps explains the bigger issue of sexism in the workplace. People tend to see most jobs as suited for males. Only when employers clearly categorize a job for females, do people consider it more suited for the “fairer sex.” This biased categorization results in favoring males over females during many job interviews and promotions.

Of course, biases are not based on gender alone. Research shows that the brain has biases toward almost all human traits, but the most significant is age bias. The majority of the participants in Taubert’s experiment perceived the faces as younger even though the objects displayed no physical human traits. This unconscious bias does not stem from one's personality or experiences but seems to be inherent, as Susan Wardle, a scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, concludes from her study. Her research suggests that bias is apparent in children as young as five years old, an age too young to be influenced by different beliefs or experiences. This also seems to prove that the process of evolution creates biases that lead to much of the discrimination we see today.

With a better understanding of this “bias brain evolution,” we will be able to learn when and why our brain creates false information. The best solution to prevent discrimination based on false perceptions is to recognize it and work to control our unconscious biases. With awareness, we can think about whether we have sufficient information before jumping to conclusions. If we know our minds are tricking us, we can curtail it and hopefully create a friendlier and less divisive society.