I once matched with a young woman on Tinder who was afraid of pigeons. She said they were too unpredictable. I can't remember the exact reason why, but we didn't meet even once. Maybe it was my lack of empathy toward her avian fears. But had I been aware of the Facebook page 'Birds With Threatening Auras', maybe we could've hit it off after all.
As its name suggests, this online project shares pictures of feathery creatures that seem to have had enough of everyone's shenanigans. Whether it's a goose chasing after university students or a parrot gazing into a storm, these well-timed images are so surprising that they raise more questions than they provide answers.
More info: Facebook
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But have you wondered why we humans often see threats when there are none? To answer this question, let's take a look at a 2018 research paper by David Levari and his colleagues, titled 'Prevalence-induced concept change in human judgment.'
"We brought volunteers into our laboratory and gave them a simple task – to look at a series of computer-generated faces and decide which ones seem 'threatening,'" Levari, then a Postdoctoral Researcher in Psychology at Harvard University, explained. "The faces had been carefully designed by researchers to range from very intimidating to very harmless."
As the scientists showed participants fewer and fewer threatening faces over time, they discovered that people expanded their definition of "threatening" to include a wider range of faces.
Simply put, when they ran out of threatening faces to find, they started calling faces threatening that they used to call harmless.
"Rather than being a consistent category, what people considered 'threats' depended on how many threats they had seen lately," Levari said.
This one is 100 percent real and utterly bizarre. The duck’s name is Star and is known for wearing a bow tie and drinking a pint at the local pub with his owner. The dog also happens to belong to the same owner and is named Meggie who clearly had enough of the duck’s drunken antics towards her. Star ended up with an injured bill but pulled through afterwards.
I’m not a woman and I’m DEFINITELY NOT 4 tree frogs and a goose in a green and pink trench coat…
Interestingly, this kind of inconsistency isn't limited to judgments about threats. In another experiment, the researchers asked people to make an even simpler decision: whether colored dots on a screen were blue or purple. As blue dots became rare, people started calling slightly purple dots blue.
"They even did this when we told them blue dots were going to become rare or offered them cash prizes to stay consistent over time," Levari added. "These results suggest that this behavior isn't entirely under conscious control – otherwise, people would have been able to be consistent to earn a cash prize."
As a duck, this is just a normal greeting not him sizing up you as prey
I believe it. My mom have a crack security team of 3 geese
After looking at the results of their experiments on facial threat and color judgments, the research group wondered if maybe this was just a funny property of the visual system. So they set out to test if this kind of concept change also happens with non-visual judgments.
"We ran a final experiment in which we asked volunteers to read about different scientific studies, and decide which were ethical and which were unethical. We were skeptical that we would find the same inconsistencies in [this kind] of judgments that we did with colors and threat."
Don't look at her! She turns you into bread! THE ONE AT THE BOTTOM IS EATING HENRY
This was mainly because moral judgments, they suspected, would be more consistent across time than other kinds of judgments. If you think violence is wrong today, you should still think it is wrong tomorrow, regardless of how much or how little violence you see that day. However, that wasn't the case.
"Surprisingly, we found the same pattern," Levari said. "As we showed people fewer and fewer unethical studies over time, they started calling a wider range of studies unethical. In other words, just because they were reading about fewer unethical studies, they became harsher judges of what counted as ethical."
Prince Harry finds out the hard way that the Queen owns AND CONTROLS the UK swans...
Stephen King: This isn't going anywhere...maybe the bird should be a car
1/2: Over 20 years ago I had an Ornithologist friend specializing in wetlands birds. She and her partner were doing a head count of Mute Swan hatchlings along the upper US East Coast. They would get “safe” distance photos to count the eggs. They then needed to wait for the nest sitter to leave briefly after the eggs hatched to take photos to compare the number to live hatchlings, so they had to get much closer since cygnets tend to bunch up without a parent’s warmth. The trick was to do so without getting too close. But sometimes even using the best scientific stalker ninja skills is not enough. These large birds, as this picture shows, can be extremely aggressive. But imagine being in water up to your armpits and having not one, but two birds realize you're near their young. Without scuba gear you really don't have much of a chance!
2/2: They both did their best to get away “quickly”. My friend, a 6’6” thin athletic woman, cut through the water like a knife but still sustained injuries to her head, arms, and back that needed stitches before the pen (female) left her alone. She said she was lucky. The cob (male) attacked her partner, who although he was a stockier man, was a much better swimmer than she was. But that really doesn't matter when you're up against an angry swan. He also had to get stitches, but also got a mild concussion and a broken arm from trying to defend himself. He also considered himself lucky!
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That's a swan. Don't mess with swans. They get really territorial and sounds like a mf CHAINSAW
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/killer-swan-blamed-for-mans-drowning
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This is a very dangerous situation to be in, and I'm surprised there wasn't warning signs for the nesting swans. The oars will come in handy. A single swan can easily drown a Labrador retriever. I know this because I know a woman who helplessly watched a swan kill her dog.
https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/killer-swan-blamed-for-mans-drowning
Harry, is that you? Please remember that now your father owns them all https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a37211709/queen-elizabeth-owns-random/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwimppDRnYf_AhUGR_EDHWbLArMQFnoECAYQAg&usg=AOvVaw3XBWxAvxHj9lt30kiywXm0
As the pigeon, I can confirm that I look at the bread like this
So why can't people help but expand what they call threatening when threats become rare? Research suggests that this kind of behavior is a consequence of the basic way that our brains process information – we are constantly comparing what is in front of us to its recent context.
"Instead of carefully deciding how threatening a face is compared to all other faces, the brain can just store how threatening it is compared to other faces it has seen recently, or compare it to some average of recently seen faces, or the most and least threatening faces it has seen," Levari said.
Perhaps my Tinder match had simply spent a considerable amount of time with pigeons?
I actually have 13 of that type of goose. They are Chinese Horned Geese, and are super sweet most of the time. Some of the males are jackholes because they want to impress their boyfriends
Trixie, after having developed a catnip addiction, had to resort to showing her fluff in daily Peepshows...
I absolutely HATE when people say that but they might have a point this time
“Look at the little baby bird who flew into the big bird zone, let’s show him what happens to little critters like him >:)”
"You can pick your friends, you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose" "Hold my beer"
Well technically, if we ignore a few million years of evolution,this is true..
Note: this post originally had 78 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
Lately, I have been identifying birds with the help of sound samples (I help collect information about migratory birds with the app intended for that purpose). When I finished it I wondered why I could still hear the birds singing until my stupid monkey brain figured out that the window was open.
Coworkers and I used to mew around the building and drive our boss nuts thinking there was a kitten somewhere in the place lol
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They asked for payment to have their likeness printed
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And not one mention of police ducks. I'm disappointed in you BP that was a real missed opportunity.
Lately, I have been identifying birds with the help of sound samples (I help collect information about migratory birds with the app intended for that purpose). When I finished it I wondered why I could still hear the birds singing until my stupid monkey brain figured out that the window was open.
Coworkers and I used to mew around the building and drive our boss nuts thinking there was a kitten somewhere in the place lol
Load More Replies... They asked for payment to have their likeness printed
Load More Replies... And not one mention of police ducks. I'm disappointed in you BP that was a real missed opportunity.
