Major depressive disorder and pareidolia: An investigation in a clinical sample

Background:
While there have been several studies investigating pareidolia in several patient populations, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Alzheimer’s disease, to our knowledge, no study has investigated pareidolia in patients with major depressive disorder. In the current study, we, for the first time, study pareidolia in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder.

Methods:
We have recruited 75 drug-naïve patients (i.e., to minimise side effects of antidepressants) diagnosed with major depressive disorder and anxiety. We have used the following measures: demographic scale, the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), and the novel Noise Pareidolia Task (NPT-20).

Results:
Results show that higher depression was associated with a lower capacity to distinguish noise from faces. Higher depression was also associated with a greater probability of seeing faces when they are not there (i.e., face pareidolia). Surprisingly, we did not find any relations between anxiety and pareidolia.

Discussion:
Our results suggest that pareidolia is a common phenomenon in several patient populations and should be investigated in clinical settings in relation to visual hallucinations.