My pareidolia knows no bounds.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br /> But that changes the whole experiment into a guessing game. How many S-like dark areas are needed before one can call it a hidden "S"? I would recalibrate my criteria, accepting poorer and poorer representations, until I got close to my designated "quota" of 50% of the images.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Tom, I'm not so sure the subjects were under the impression that they needed to find faces in 50% of the slides. Remember one of them said, "I only said yes when it jumped out at me" and so she only said "Yes" 11% of the time.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />The point is that I would not really be seeing "S"es or anything I would mistake for an "S" in real life. I would simply be adapting and learning how to respond to a very specific type of stimulus. You might as well have given me a bunch of white noise images and told me to pick out about half of the images that have the best approximation to showing an "S". There is a solution to that challenge (though not a unique one), and an obedient subject would do as requested.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">For all the subjects knew, they may have just thought they were trying to be as accurate as possible. In other words, after the test, they get together for lunch and ask, "how many did you get right?"
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i><br />
The absence of controls in the experimental protocol stood out for me as a red warning flag. Because there is no control group, it is impossible to attribute the test result to anything specific. The power of suggestion comes readily to mind.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Can you think of a control for this experiment? It strikes me as being self-controlling.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i><br />
So my initial reaction to this test is that it has little to tell us about our Mars dilemma. However, it is the kind of challenge we need. I'll bet somone out there has done some testing that is more relevant to our situation, if we can just find that information.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I agree in general, with your skepticism. This may or may not be applicable. I think it is, and the experimenters think it is, but you're right to want more.

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />I proved to myself, that the same image processing techniques that I might use on a “face”, worked to bring out the Ss.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Can you prove that to any of us? Show us a white noise image and a legitimate image processing technique that will bring out a credible "S" in it. I do not expect this to be possible. -|Tom|-
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Tom, the image I used contained all three "box a" from the paper. This image:

Remember, this is the summed and subtracted slides, which contains information from all 20,000 slides. The S really <b>is</b> there in these, you can see if for yourself. That was my only question for Dr. Schyns originally. I wanted to know why I could see the S when it was supposed to be all white noise. So, I made the same mistake you are making.

I just did this, because I was curious how my image processing steps would compare to their "smooth low-pass (Butterworth) filter", which they used to get the boxes "b" in the paper.

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />Can you think of a control for this experiment? It strikes me as being self-controlling.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">For one, I'd like to see how subjects performed when they were not lied to. I, for one, would expect to have had zero hits in that kind of test. -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />So, I made the same mistake you are making.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">What is that mistake? I still don't get it. How did an "S" get into the sum of white noise unless it wasn't really "white"? -|Tom|-

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br />For one, I'd like to see how subjects performed when they were not lied to. I, for one, would expect to have had zero hits in that kind of test.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I agree! But that just proves the validity of what they are testing for: If you believe they are there, you'll find them, if not, you won't!

What about the case where they tell the subjects that there <b>might </b>be Ss in any one of them, all the way to none of them? What would we expect then? My guess would be no discernable S.

rd

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by tvanflandern</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rderosa</i>
<br />So, I made the same mistake you are making.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">What is that mistake? I still don't get it. How did an "S" get into the sum of white noise unless it wasn't really "white"? -|Tom|-
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Let me use Dr. Schyns' answer:

"How does this happen? Because the subject IS TOLD to EXTRACT the letter S from white noise, the subject attempts to match his/her knowledge of an S with the incoming white noise. To the extent that white noise correlates with all possible patterns, if there is a SMALL but systematic correlation between the knowledge of the subject and the incoming white noise then the subtraction explained above will capture it.


My point of relaying this to you is to show that even under the worst possible condition of information (i.e. absence of it, white noise), people will systematically perceive things. I wish to stress this: they will PERCEIVE something. They are not deluding themselves. If they were (i.e. if there was no systematic correlation between some white noise templates and their knowledge), box a would be a uniform gray." (PG Schyns)

This is precisely why I think it is relevant to our Mar's case. Didn't you say that there is no level of detail that could rule out random chance. Well random chance is providing for "SMALL but systematic correlation between the knowledge of the subject and the incoming white noise".


rd