Skip to content 
How Many Faces Can You See? What This Optical Illusion Really Says About Trust
At first glance, the image appears to show nothing more than cracked, dry earth. But look a little longer and something unexpected begins to emerge: human faces hidden within the texture of the ground.
The image has been circulating online with the claim that the number of faces a person can identify reveals a particular “trust trait.” It is an entertaining optical illusion, but the psychological claim deserves a little more caution.
How many faces do you see?
Some viewers immediately notice only a few large faces. Others begin spotting smaller faces hidden among the cracks, shadows and patterns.
That difference is not necessarily a measure of how trustworthy someone is.
Our brains are exceptionally good at detecting familiar patterns, particularly faces. This tendency is known as pareidolia—the perception of meaningful images, such as faces, in ambiguous visual patterns.
In an image like this, one person’s attention may be drawn to a large face near the top, while another person may notice smaller shapes scattered throughout the picture.
Does the number of faces reveal your personality?
Not scientifically.
There is genuine psychological research showing that people form impressions of trustworthiness from faces very quickly. However, researchers have found that the accuracy of those impressions is limited and sometimes contradictory.