It is good to hear that, as a Scot, I will survive longer in the wild than my fellow Brits.

(This may come as a surprise to anyone who has seen me in the great outdoors, not least of all my children, who know I hate insects, can’t stand being cold and wet and would run shrieking from anything bigger than a midgie. I would actually run shrieking from a midgie. It would take a lot to get me camping.)

But it is true, according to a new interactive survey set up by Lenstore.

The company has tested more than 2000 people to see who can see most faces in everyday objects, which is apparently a thing (it has a name and everything – pareidolia –) and which can save your life in the wild.

In this admittedly far from scientific study (it just requires you to look at 10 pictures online and click yes or no, depending on whether you can see faces in them), Scotland came out on top.

Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon that causes people to see patterns in random objects, often assigning human characteristics to them.

This is a game my boys and I play all the time, especially in the car on the school run, where we check out passing vehicles and assign emotions to them. Buses are generally grumpy, vans can be happy or sad, and it IS possible for cars to look smug – particularly BMWs and Audis.

It’s weirdly addictive and sometimes hilarious. I swear only this morning we saw a van whose white rear shutter door with two tiny black handles and a yellow sticker in the middle looked just like a penguin.

Anyway, hilarity aside, this ability will serve us in good stead. It has been hypothesised that there is a fundamental evolutionary need to see faces. It helps you survive, as it is definitely safer to assume you ARE seeing a face, even if there is none, than NOT see a face when a predator is gaining on you.

As Christopher French, of the British Psychological Society, puts it: “A classic example is the Stone Age guy standing there, scratching his beard, wondering whether that rustling in the bushes really is a sabre-toothed tiger.

“You’re much more likely to survive if you assume it’s a sabre-toothed tiger and get the hell out of there, rather than ending up as lunch.”

The Making Faces study (https://www.lenstore.co.uk/vc/making-faces/) taps in to our love of seeing things in clouds, or the face of Jesus in a croissant.

The findings claim that Scots are the best at doing it, with 67 per cent of us able to do it; and women are better at it than men (just – 66 per cent compared to 61 per cent).perhaps because, say the experts, women tend to be better at deciphering emotions through facial expressions.

This is good news. Having discovered this new skill of mine, I feel a lot more comfortable about going camping...