This is a compression artifact. You cannot process everything that is going on, so your brain fills in the missing or uncertain parts with a similar (abstract)

This is a compression artifact. You cannot process everything that is going on, so your brain fills in the missing or uncertain parts with a similar (abstract) computation that it already has experienced in a similar manner. It is abstract in the sense that it only replicates some aspects of the real thing. Perceiving such a compression/abstraction is better for increasing reproductive success than receiving just noise when data is missing or has low resolution.