Universal Principles of Design, Updated and Expanded Third Edition
by William Lidwell, Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
059 Face Detection
The tendency to find or see human faces in objects and patterns.
Humans and other primates are hardwired to recognize faces. Newborn babies stare at face-like images longer than at any other kind of images, and stare longer when the face-like images are upright versus tilted or inverted. This tendency likely evolved as a mechanism for babies to find, bond, and communicate nonverbally with their caregivers, giving them an adaptive advantage. A byproduct of this hardwiring is facial pareidolia, which is the tendency to see illusory faces in things when they have face-like configurations or patterns. Since seeing faces and interpreting their expressions is a reflexive response, it is important for designers to understand how ...
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