The zoom settings on my navigator plus whatever CSS is there conspired to make the image 720x370px on my screen (with whatever scaling Chrome does). It’s 700x361px unscaled
My eyes were drawn to that whorl, but I didn’t notice anything threatening in the image. (Even reading the comments above, I don’t see what could be interpreted as a tiger face in there.)
But when I opened the image in a separate tab it didn’t get the scaling applied (the navigator’s; presumably it was rescaled before but with a better algorithm). I saw the fox instantly (i.e., I didn’t notice any delay between switching tabs and looking at the fox wondering if foxes are threatening for the article’s purpose). Weird.
Even now, knowing where it is, it seems much harder to see in the navigator-scaled image, although I couldn’t point to any difference that would justify that.
That’s what the HTML code asks for. I have Chrome set to zoom a couple of levels most pages, which is why mine was upscaled. The aspect ratio difference is not huge; R(720)/R(700) = 0.996..., R(500)/R(700) = 1.003. I think the difference was that mine was upscaled and thus had a bit less local contrast (i.e., was a bit more blurry). I still find even the 500x257 one harder to see, but that could be expected as it’s simply smaller and thus has less info even with a perfect scaling algorithm.
I mean, one would expect a scaled image to be slightly harder to see clearly, but it’s strange how much of a difference there is for seeing the fox without actually noticing any specific difference about the image. (I actually had to check the sizes with the HTML inspector, as the difference between 720 and 700px was too low to see clearly when switching tabs.)
I saw the fake tiger first, too. Before reading the comments, I thought the point of that was showing that threat recognition by humans has false positives.
I needed a word that didn’t explicitly tell the viewer what to look for. “Prey” or “Predator” would have made it too obvious, and I certainly didn’t want to say “find the fox” or “find the animal”.
I used the word “threat” because the act of finding the fox in the image represents our survival mechanisms being put to use, even if the animal is not a real threat, if you heard rustling in the foliage, the first instinct is to assume it’s a threat.
I spotted a non-existent tiger face just to the right of the fox—then I noticed the fox and was confused about why it’s called a threat.
I was also drawn to that whorl near the center, but didn’t spot the fox until I knew I was looking for a fox.
The zoom settings on my navigator plus whatever CSS is there conspired to make the image 720x370px on my screen (with whatever scaling Chrome does). It’s 700x361px unscaled
My eyes were drawn to that whorl, but I didn’t notice anything threatening in the image. (Even reading the comments above, I don’t see what could be interpreted as a tiger face in there.)
But when I opened the image in a separate tab it didn’t get the scaling applied (the navigator’s; presumably it was rescaled before but with a better algorithm). I saw the fox instantly (i.e., I didn’t notice any delay between switching tabs and looking at the fox wondering if foxes are threatening for the article’s purpose). Weird.
Even now, knowing where it is, it seems much harder to see in the navigator-scaled image, although I couldn’t point to any difference that would justify that.
It appears as 500x257 to me, but I don’t see a difference between it and the unscaled image, possibly because it’s the same aspect ratio.
That’s what the HTML code asks for. I have Chrome set to zoom a couple of levels most pages, which is why mine was upscaled. The aspect ratio difference is not huge; R(720)/R(700) = 0.996..., R(500)/R(700) = 1.003. I think the difference was that mine was upscaled and thus had a bit less local contrast (i.e., was a bit more blurry). I still find even the 500x257 one harder to see, but that could be expected as it’s simply smaller and thus has less info even with a perfect scaling algorithm.
I mean, one would expect a scaled image to be slightly harder to see clearly, but it’s strange how much of a difference there is for seeing the fox without actually noticing any specific difference about the image. (I actually had to check the sizes with the HTML inspector, as the difference between 720 and 700px was too low to see clearly when switching tabs.)
I saw the fake tiger first, too. Before reading the comments, I thought the point of that was showing that threat recognition by humans has false positives.
I needed a word that didn’t explicitly tell the viewer what to look for. “Prey” or “Predator” would have made it too obvious, and I certainly didn’t want to say “find the fox” or “find the animal”.
I used the word “threat” because the act of finding the fox in the image represents our survival mechanisms being put to use, even if the animal is not a real threat, if you heard rustling in the foliage, the first instinct is to assume it’s a threat.
Good point. Hmm. Maybe “You hear a rustling in the foliage. Find the source, lest you be eaten by a grue!”