This assignment started out by reading an article about perception. Following this, we had to choose one out of 7 provided questions, and complete all of its associated activities. I chose the question “What are CAPTCHAS and How Do They Work?”, which came with reading 6 different articles and one YouTube video giving insight into answering the question. After this, I had to create a discussion board post, identifying which of the seven questions I chose to learn the answer to, why I chose that question, and answer the question by referring to the articles and videos associated with the question.
The article on perception was brief, and started out by explaining that perception allows us to experience the world around us. It tells us that it involves recognition of stimuli as well as response to those stimuli. It explains that perception involves the five senses, as well as other cognitive processes.
Moving on to the question I identified, I chose to learn the answer to “What Are CAPTCHAS and How Do They Work?” because I had no idea what the acronym stood for. I had never heard of something referred to as a CAPTCHA before, even though I now know what they are, and I have certainly experienced them on the internet.
To answer the first part of the question , the science ABC article by Ashish described CAPTCHAS as “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”. According to the Bruce article, there are many forms of this, including scrambling forms of text, simple math problems, deciphering images, and logic-based questions. According to the Wilson article, a more recent form involves clicking on a check box that says “I’m not a robot”.
These are based on what is called the Turing test which CNet’s YouTube video described, where there are 3 players, 1 is a human investigator, and the other 2 are a human and a robot. The investigator asks questions to both in order to figure out which one is the computer, as it is a test of the computer’s intelligence. So, essentially, CAPTCHAS are based of off this test, and want to distinguish real people online from bots.
I learned that CAPTCHA’s work in a couple of different ways. For example, the Prusty article explains that for the check box CAPTCHA, it describes that it isn’t actually a check box, but is a div inside an iframe, and most bots don’t run JavaScript, so the box doesn’t show up at all or is just a graphic. For the other types of CAPTCHAS, the Ashish Science ABC article describes that keystroke patterns and small movements are examined to tell people apart from bots. They also describe that for the word CAPTCHAS, if people can make out difficult patterns and words, then they are likely human.
Reflecting on this assignment, my main takeaway is that I now understand the Turing test, CAPTCHA’s, and how they work. I had never heard of either of these things before, so reading the articles and watching the video was informative for me. It was valuable to explore a subject I was pretty unfamiliar with going in, because now I feel confident discussing these topics and build off my knowledge if I hear more about them in the future.
Additionally, this is another example of Professor Gernsbacher giving us a large amount of choice for an assignment, which I am very thankful for. There were 7 questions that included their own sets of activities, and being able to choose was important because I was able to learn about something new, as well as something I was sincerely interested in learning about. If she would have just given us 1 option, there wouldn’t be any choice, and I could have been stuck with something that I am not interested in. Luckily, I didn’t have to worry about this!
Also, I thought it was a good idea to make us refer to all of the articles and videos that related to our question. This ensured that we understood the main points of each one, and made us go back and reread and rewatch. Having multiple interactions with the material will allow me to remember it better going forward.
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