Limitations and future directions
Potential limitations in the current study include the absence of a control stimulation montage and tACS frequency. Future research could extend our results by testing different brain areas (e.g., motor areas, to confirm the spatial specificity of our protocol’s effects), and/or by introducing other stimulation frequencies. This would allow testing for the frequency/localization specificity of the behavioural effects we have here shown. Despite counterbalancing the administration order of the tasks among groups might have prevented order effects, future studies should replicate our study with “pure” online versus offline groups. The absence of electrophysiological recordings represents a further limitation, precluding the concurrent investigation of tACS’ underpinning mechanisms. Indeed, future studies should implement a co-registration of EEG/MEG to elucidate the neurophysiological nature of the increased face pareidolia we demonstrated at the behavioural level, along with its spatio/temporal dynamics