{"id":273,"date":"2010-11-22T23:11:04","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T23:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/?p=273"},"modified":"2010-11-23T16:20:21","modified_gmt":"2010-11-23T16:20:21","slug":"quiz-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/2010\/11\/22\/quiz-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Quiz Results!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/2010\/11\/18\/nouveau-notions\/\" target=\"_blank\">my last post<\/a>, I had a short quiz. If you haven&#8217;t taken it yet, do so now! Once you look at the results, your own answers won&#8217;t count.<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n function show_results() {   document.cookie='answers=1';   var elem = document.getElementById('results');   elem.style.display = 'block'; }\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><\/p>\n<div style=\"color: blue; cursor: pointer;\" onclick=\"show_results()\">View the results!<\/div>\n<div id=\"results\" style=\"display: none;\">\n<p>The quiz contained several simple images:<\/p>\n<p>1. <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 4px; width: 300px; height: 113px; vertical-align: text-top;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/lj\/11-18-2010\/lines.png\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n2. <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 4px; width: 236px; height: 117px; vertical-align: text-top;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/lj\/11-18-2010\/circles.png\" alt=\"\" \/><br \/>\n3. <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 4px; width: 300px; height: 60px; vertical-align: text-top;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/lj\/11-18-2010\/gradients.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The questions asked whether the left-hand object in each image was, respectively, longer, larger, or lighter than the right-hand object, or the other way around &#8212; or whether the two objects were actually the same.<\/p>\n<p>To the uneducated eye, the answers to the quiz are obvious: (1) the line on the left is longer than the line on the right; (2) the inner circle on the left is larger than the inner circle on the right; (3) the inner circle on the left is lighter than the inner circle on the right.<\/p>\n<p>However, there is a class of simple optical illusions that exploits certain contextual clues to trick our brains into making the above &#8220;obvious&#8221; conclusions, when in fact they are false. In such illusions, all of the compared objects are actually <em>the same<\/em> with respect to the specified property, but are made to look different. For instance, in image 1, the use of inward-pointing arrows serves to increase the <em>apparent<\/em> length of the first line, whereas the use of outward-pointing arrows serves to decrease the <em>apparent<\/em> length of the second line.<\/p>\n<p>The first striking, and somewhat disappointing, result from the quiz is that these illusions are well-known: 27 of the 28 people who took the quiz reported having seen them before.<\/p>\n<p>The second notable result is the uniformity of the answers.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>88% of the answers were &#8220;same&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>12% were &#8220;left&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I suppose these results would have been more interesting if more people hadn&#8217;t already seen such illusions. I also primed the quiz as follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If you are curious about how your brain can jump to incorrect conclusions based on what you think you know, take this 30-second quiz.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This introduction probably got people on their guard. No doubt when they recognized the questions, they realized that &#8220;what you think you know&#8221; must refer to the contextual optical illusion created by the image, and were suitably prepared to answer correctly.<\/p>\n<p>That was a bit of misdirection, however, especially in the context of a post (only tangentially related, I&#8217;ll admit) that discussed the over-confidence sometimes caused by the knowledge of new information.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, &#8220;what you think you know&#8221; referred to <em>your foreknowledge of such illusions.<\/em> In fact, in the above images:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The left-hand line is 10% longer than the right-hand line.<\/li>\n<li>The left-hand inner circle is 10% larger (by area) than the right-hand circle.<\/li>\n<li>The left-hand inner circle is 10% lighter (by rough RGB estimate) than the right-hand circle.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>This is actually true, as I made these images myself for this quiz. You are welcome to bust out Photoshop to check. Alternatively, a clear mind and a quick second look at the images above should convince you of the fact that the answer is &#8220;left&#8221; for each of the three questions. <strong>So only 12% of the answers were correct.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I increased the trickery a bit by adding a 7-second timer to each question. If you recognized the illusion &#8212; and assumed that the quiz was designed for people who did <em>not<\/em> recognize it &#8212; you&#8217;d likely assume that the timer was present to prevent such people from having the time to analyze the image and overrule their initial judgment (to select the left-hand object) in favor of the correct judgment (to select &#8220;same&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>In fact, its purpose was <em>exactly the opposite<\/em>: to prevent illusion-recognizers from having the time to realize that the left-hand object was clearly correct, knowledge of illusions be damned.<\/p>\n<p>Some more fun facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Even the one person who hadn&#8217;t seen the illusion before guessed &#8220;same&#8221; for all three questions.<\/li>\n<li>Only 3 people of 28 guessed &#8220;left&#8221; twice of their three answers.<\/li>\n<li>No one guessed &#8220;left&#8221; all three times.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Why did I do this experiment? I didn&#8217;t have much impetus other than the fact that when I thought of it I realized I&#8217;d fall for the trick and was wondering whether anyone else would, too.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure what can be learned from it, either, given the host of confounding variables. Maybe something about how easy it is for book-learning to trump our gut feelings. <\/p>\n<p>If anything, this quiz proves that there are some legitimate tests on which I, and most people who read my blog, would do worse than a first grader.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my last post, I had a short quiz. If you haven&#8217;t taken it yet, do so now! Once you look at the results, your own answers won&#8217;t count. View the results! The quiz contained several simple images: 1. 2. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/2010\/11\/22\/quiz-results\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1c91x-4p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boopidy.com\/aj\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}