In 1994, a woman in Florida received what she took to be a religious message via a grilled cheese sandwich. As she gazed at its toasted surface, a familiar figure peered back.
“I saw a face looking up at me, it was the Virgin Mary,” she said. “I was in shock.”
The rest of the world had cause to be surprised when she sold the snack on eBay for $28,000.
The phenomenon of people seeing significant patterns, often faces, in inanimate objects is called pareidolia. Scientists believe that it is deeply wired into the human brain and now a study has hinted that it plays a special role in parenthood, by helping new mothers to forge social bonds.
“We all see faces in the