bigbywolfe Posted March 22, 2012 Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... And that had to do with his view that doubling distance should quadruple the area. You read the word sniper and assumed he meant someone was looking through a scope, which was not, as far as I can see, he point at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted March 22, 2012 Report Share Posted March 22, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Two halflings have trouble finding each other? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brionl Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... The US military seems to think that small and far away have the same hit modifiers. You can qualify for your Rifle Markmanship badge by shooting at full size targets at various ranges out to 300 yards. Or you can fire at various size targets at a fixed range. 50 yards, IIRC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... The US military seems to think that small and far away have the same hit modifiers. You can qualify for your Rifle Markmanship badge by shooting at full size targets at various ranges out to 300 yards. Or you can fire at various size targets at a fixed range. 50 yards' date=' IIRC.[/quote'] I think this is simply a misunderstanding: How difficulty it is to hit a target a certain size vs. how difficutly it is to optically search an area for a target through a zoom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbywolfe Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Again, you are the only one talking about zoom... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted March 25, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... In a firing range I would imagine that there is no practical difference, although at longer ranges outdoors I would imagine that things like crosswinds will make an accurate shot more difficult, although I do not know the numbers. There is also the fact that long distances will mean that gravity has more of an effect. There is no difference in small and far away in purely physical/physics terms, although although human eyesight limitations will mean that, unless you do have a telescopic sight, you may have a problem really focussing on the target well enough to hit the bit you want. Smoe sights can, of course, correct for range and even windage. In fact, for a moving target it may be easier to hit at a greater distance as the actual angluar change will be greater when the target is closer. Anyway...part of the problem visualising the problem (I know) is that people think their eyesight is better than it is. 50% of the nerve output from your eye comves from an area called the fovea which only covers 3% of visual arc, and most of the rest from an area called the macula which covers about another 10 to 12% of visual arc. So...what you actually do is look at something then move your eyes and re-focus. What you don't do it look at a scene and take it all in. Of course, you don't realise that is what you are doing. It is almost completely subconscious, which is why you think your eyesight is better than it is. Now you do not have to re-focus much: the difference between 6 metres and infinity is less than 0.2 dioptres and the human eye can manage up to about 60 dioptres, most of which is used for close focusing. That is why we do sight tests at 20 feet/6metres (20/20 vision means you can see as well at 20 feet as you are supposed to 20 feet). You can quickly spot something that is obvious in your field of vision because you CAN scan your field of vision pretty quickly, but if something is not obvious then you have to search for it. Even if you are not walking the ground, it can still take a lot of time to find it. Markdoc, I hear what you are saying about spotting keys on your desk or in your hall, but again you are talking about something obvious. Ever tried a 'Where's Wally?' puzzle? You can easily see the whole page (and you THINK you can see the whole page at once, but you can't, you can only see a very small bit of it and you keep shifting view) but it still takes a long time to find Wally. If you make the page twice as big (and so quadruple the area), it will probably take at least four times longer to find Wally. It may take a lot longer unless you are REALLY disciplined because you will (again unconsciously) skip from spot to spot and 'look ahead', inevitably skipping over bits of the page. As to 'the usual suspects' for places I left my keys, again, that is right. I tend to leave my keys in certain places and I look there first and often find them BUT that actually slows me down when someone else has moved them, or they have just fallen out of my pocket and I really have no idea where they are. Searching for something that is not obvious - say the sniper example - is like looking for something that has been deliberately hidden by someone GOOD at hiding and good at working out where someone else would assume something was hidden, and every bit of the available terrain is going to have to be looked at, piece by piece, in rather less than 3% chunks*. Luck is going to be important: if you start a systematic search in the right place, you might succeed quickly. If you start in the wrong place it is going to go slowly. *As 3% is the most you can properly focus on, even if you can see the whole of the search area in your field of vision Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Ever tried a 'Where's Wally?' puzzle? You can easily see the whole page (and you THINK you can see the whole page at once' date=' but you can't, you can only see a very small bit of it and you keep shifting view) but it still takes a long time to find Wally. If you make the page twice as big (and so quadruple the area), it will probably take at least four times longer to find Wally. It may take a lot longer unless you are REALLY disciplined because you will (again unconsciously) skip from spot to spot and 'look ahead', inevitably skipping over bits of the page.[/quote'] Here comes the contrast modifier into play. If you just had wally somewhere in a book of otherwise white pages, he would be very easy to find. Searching for something that is not obvious - say the sniper example - is like looking for something that has been deliberately hidden by someone GOOD at hiding and good at working out where someone else would assume something was hidden' date=' and every bit of the available terrain is going to have to be looked at, piece by piece, in rather less than 3% chunks*. Luck is going to be important: if you start a systematic search in the right place, you might succeed quickly. If you start in the wrong place it is going to go slowly.[/quote'] The luck part is one good reason why rolling a dice works nicely here. Hiding somethign actively is using your Concelment* skill, wich will result in a better startign point to wich the sight modifiers add. Or you fail, making it obvious to spot. *Stealth is for active hiding when you are aware of and actively avoid the enemy. Concealment would be right to hide against possible snipers (wich you cannot perceive). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 25, 2012 Report Share Posted March 25, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... For the "where is waldo/wally", perhaps they even used thier Artistry/Painter skill complimentary to thier concealment skills. That and taking extra time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Markdoc' date=' I hear what you are saying about spotting keys on your desk or in your hall, but again you are talking about something obvious. Ever tried a 'Where's Wally?' puzzle? You can easily see the whole page (and you THINK you can see the whole page at once, but you can't, you can only see a very small bit of it and you keep shifting view) but it still takes a long time to find Wally. If you make the page twice as big (and so quadruple the area), it will probably take at least four times longer to find Wally. It may take a lot longer unless you are REALLY disciplined because you will (again unconsciously) skip from spot to spot and 'look ahead', inevitably skipping over bits of the page.[/quote'] Ah, but it doesn't and this I know not just from my own experience, but from detailed analysis. I spent years working the field of TB, and when you are doing diagnosis there are three areas where you spend a lot of time scanning for small tell-tales: sputum smears looking for bacteria of a specific size and colour, or reading X-rays and CT scans, looking for small cues such as calcified lesions or "tree-in-bud" patterns (in te latter cases you are looking for distinct patterns of grey/white on a greyscale background ). As this is a crucial step (and one of the weakest links in the whole process: many cases still get missed in initial screening), a lot of effort has been spent on analysing how this is done, and how we can do it better. We know, very well, that one of the ways you can speed up that scanning process ... is to blow up the images. Make 'em larger and you can not only find things faster, but find them at a higher rate of accuracy. Your theoretical analysis leads you to the exact opposite conclusion of what happens in real life and therefore, I am afraid, must be discarded. At least, I am going to discard it because we know it's not true. Seeing doesn't work they way you seem to think it does. Yes, we have limited field of focus, but our brains process visual data holistically and are very good at picking patterns out of general data: the whole identify/focus pattern happens literally within a fraction of a second, and people spend a lot of their time "seeing" without actually focusing on anything (driving is a good example). Area is largely irrelevant. When I look out my window at the parking lot, there are dozens of cars. I don't focus on each one at a time to identify them: I can see the one red car more or less instantaneously, even if focusing on the far end of the lot. I don't need to focus - or even concentrate on it - to see it. If I want a particular black car, again I don't focus on each one - I scan swiftly over all the black cars, looking for a specific series of cues. Same with waldo. Put him - by himself - on a sheet of paper and everyone will identify him instantly, more or less regardless of size. Put him on a page with thousands of blue objects and everyone will find him almost instantly. He's hard to find only when he is put on a page with lots of things the same potential size and colour, which can't easily be scanned. Blow the image up to 4 times the size .... and he'll actually be easier to find, because you are amplifying the actual cues that you use to find him. Area to be scanned is - this we know - largely irrelevant. What counts are contrast and interference: how many things are there that hide what you are looking for? Number, not size. cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted March 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... There was an interesting study done with airport security, where they X-Ray stuff to look for things like guns. The problem with it is that guns are in fact very rarely smuggled in airport luggage and you would think that would mean that when you DO see one then you are more likely to pick it out, BUT in fact what happens is that you get a better hit rate when the frequency is higher. The 'spot the sniper' problem is like the 'Where's Wally/Waldo' one: the thing you are looking for is NOT inherently easy to spot (although even when it is - like the gun in the luggage, it is often missed). I absolutely agree that I can stand on the beach near where I like and see all the people and dogs for a couple of miles in either directing. Well, a mile, maybe, even though they look VERY small at that distance - but I would have a job picking out one person - say my wife who I am very familiar with (sometimes overly familiar, if I am lucky) out of the group even when the beach is relatively sparsely populated. The problem is not is what you are looking for visible, the problem is are you able to pick out what you are looking for from everything you can see? If I knew that my wife was on a particular section of the beach, it would take less time to spot her. If you have a high contrast object on its own then you can see it easily enough. I rarely have a problem spotting the sun on a clear day, despite the 93 million mile range, but you vary rarely in practice get to look for something that is that uniquely obvious. Logical searching and 'blowing up*' sections of your field of vision help immensely but the point is that you still have more to actually look at if the area is bigger. It is not just range (which does have an effect) it is ALSO area, and looking for something, as I may have said before, is not the same as looking AT something. *Not this kind of blowing up, although, as you can see, it serves... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... We know' date=' very well, that one of the ways you can speed up that scanning process ... is to blow up the images. Make 'em larger and you can not only find things faster, but find them at a higher rate of accuracy.[/quote'] Yes,.......because you are also expanding the size of what you are looking for as well as the size of the area you're looking in. Your example certainly has value but is not strictly parallel to the case Sean Walters describes, of expanding the search area without simultaneously expanding the objects sought. It does suggest that absolute "eye size" i.e. how big the object is from the viewer's, uh, point of view, is much more significant than its size relative to the area being scanned (since by increasing the former while holding the latter constant, you increase the visibility of the object.) This argues against Sean Waters' claim. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary says wait, weren't we organizing an angry mob to go after that Waters person? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... If you have a high contrast object on its own then you can see it easily enough. I rarely have a problem spotting the sun on a clear day' date=' despite the 93 million mile range, but you vary rarely in practice get to look for something that is that uniquely obvious. Logical searching and 'blowing up*' sections of your field of vision help immensely but the point is that you still have more to actually look at if the area is bigger. It is not just range (which does have an effect) it is ALSO area, and looking for something, as I may have said before, is not the same as looking AT something.[/quote'] Ah, but you keep making the same error: the statement "but the point is that you still have more to actually look at if the area is bigger" is demonstrably untrue. As has been pointed out by a number of people (including yourself) it is the number of similar things you have to identify and how similar they are, that defines the difficulty of the search - not the area you have to scan. Area - as has been repeatedly pointed out - is irrelevant. You are searching a huge area when you look for the sun ... which has no effect, really. There's only one object matching your search criteria in your field of vision, so you find it more or less instantly. One object alone in a very large are is far easier to find than one object among 5 similar objects in a very small area -as you yourself point out with the beach/wife example. cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbywolfe Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Wouldn't a beach full of people be considered "cluttered" thus giving penalties for searching for one specific person? That, IMO, is much more signifigant than the area. Increased area does have an effect, but not nearly as big of one as you are giving it credit for. I think the current system is about right for the level of granularity in Hero System and the changes you want to make in regards to PER modifiers would require making hero much more granular first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... There was an interesting study done with airport security' date=' where they X-Ray stuff to look for things like guns. The problem with it is that guns are in fact very rarely smuggled in airport luggage and you would think that would mean that when you DO see one then you are more likely to pick it out, BUT in fact what happens is that you get a better hit rate when the frequency is higher. The 'spot the sniper' problem is like the 'Where's Wally/Waldo' one: the thing you are looking for is NOT inherently easy to spot (although even when it is - like the gun in the luggage, it is often missed).[/quote'] But you are just prooving our point even more. It is not the object or the area in wich to search, but the contrast. And X-Ray has a notorious bad contrast, thus making it hard to pick it out of the luggage. I absolutely agree that I can stand on the beach near where I like and see all the people and dogs for a couple of miles in either directing. Well' date=' a mile, maybe, even though they look VERY small at that distance - but I would have a job picking out one person - say my wife who I am very familiar with (sometimes overly familiar, if I am lucky) out of the group even when the beach is relatively sparsely populated. The problem is not [i']is what you are looking for visible[/i], the problem is are you able to pick out what you are looking for from everything you can see? If I knew that my wife was on a particular section of the beach, it would take less time to spot her. Again, this is not a problem of the area, but of the number of similar objects (people in beach clothing). Also people tend to sit or lie on the beach, reducing thier visible size. If your wife is the only one standing, or the only one on the beach she becomes easy to find - if you expect to find her. This women on hte horizon whose hair color you can't identify - is she your wife or somebody else? If you have a high contrast object on its own then you can see it easily enough. You seem to misunderstand what contrasts means. You can't have a "high contrast object on it's own". Contrast is the difference between an object and it's surrounding. Take a Wordprocessor, set the Font color to white on a white background. Now write. You see nothing. Not because the font isn't drawn by the GPU or anything, but because the font does not differentiates enough relative to the background. Font and background have no Contrast to another. Now take yellow on white. It's visible, but a pain to read. And you might overlook it if the lighting is bad and you don't expect it. Now try white on Blue. Or yellow on Black. Or white on Green. Here font and the background have a clear contrast (afaik each of them has more contrast that Black on white). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted March 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... The degree of cover is certainly important but, assuming that there is enough cover (or other similar objects) to make the search non-trivial, and that the proportion of cover does not change when the area changes (i.e. we are controlling that variable), then the area that you are having to search is relevant. If there are only 20 'obvious' objects, for example, and you vary the area in which they are distributed then a larger will not substantially affect your chances, but if there are 20 objects per unit of area (say per 100 square metres) and you have to search (or look over) 400 square metres (with 80 objects distributed over that space) then it will be more difficult. The larger area is no more cluttered, but it is a larger area that is equally cluttered. OTOH I agree that this may not make a lot of difference to the game as a whole: it is and always has been a minor point of interest rather than one of importance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Another example for contrast is this video about Night Vision vs. Thermal Vision. There are multiple side by side examples. In the one you can barely make out a movign person even when you know where to look. In the other, you see them as clearly as white on black. Neither distance nor area change the sligthest bit. The only thing that changed, is the contrast. A human has much more heat than the sorrounding, so on thermal vision* it has good contrast. *technically it's a computer generated image based on on only a small area of the thermal spectrum (wich goes down to absolute zero). The raw thermal data would be pretty usless for us humans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted March 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Yes' date='.......because you are [b']also expanding the size of what you are looking for[/b] as well as the size of the area you're looking in. Your example certainly has value but is not strictly parallel to the case Sean Walters describes, of expanding the search area without simultaneously expanding the objects sought. It does suggest that absolute "eye size" i.e. how big the object is from the viewer's, uh, point of view, is much more significant than its size relative to the area being scanned (since by increasing the former while holding the latter constant, you increase the visibility of the object.) This argues against Sean Waters' claim. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary says wait, weren't we organizing an angry mob to go after that Waters person? That angry mob will have to find me first... For the record I agree that 'obviousness' is the first and foremost concern here, but I would also agree (just to be contrary or, put another way, myself), that size counteracts range nicely. The sun, of course, is a long way away, but it is enormous. Perhaps a better example might be another star - pick any of them - at night, or better yet a planet - say Mars. I pick Mars because you can tell with the naked eye that it is red (well, a pale pink) and is of comparable apparent size to a star, but unless you know where to look for it in the night sky, it will take you a good while to find it, even though it is a high contrast object that is 'obvious', if it were up there alone. I would also suggest that if you were told the rough area that Mars was in, it would cut down your average search time, even though nothing else changed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... even though it is a high contrast object that is 'obvious'' date=' if it were up there alone. I would also suggest that if you were told the rough area that Mars was in, it would cut down your average search time, even though nothing else changed.[/quote'] If you can't pick it out of the night sky fast, it is not a high contrast object from your point of view and in the spectrum you are looking at it. Actually all that high contrast means, is that you have an easy time picking it out of the crowd. The ony black car in a parking lot of white cars is easy to pick out, because it has a high contrast - visible difference - to eveything around it. The same black car, in the same parking lot, from the same position is way harder to pick out if it is surrounded by black cars (asuming you coudl still relatively easily identify it even without the color). Area, distance and size have not changed by one millimeter - the contrast has by a giant amout of [whatever visual contrast is measured in]. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbywolfe Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... That angry mob will have to find me first...For the record I agree that 'obviousness' is the first and foremost concern here' date=' but I would also agree (just to be contrary or, put another way, myself), that size counteracts range nicely. The sun, of course, is a long way away, but it is enormous. Perhaps a better example might be another star - pick any of them - at night, or better yet a planet - say Mars. I pick Mars because you can tell with the naked eye that it is red (well, a pale pink) and is of comparable apparent size to a star, but unless you know where to look for it in the night sky, it will take you a good while to find it, even though it is a high contrast object that is 'obvious', if it were up there alone. I would also suggest that if you were told the rough area that Mars was in, it would cut down your average search time, even though nothing else changed.[/quote']You say yourself Mars is comparable to a star. So you now have a cluttered field of search due to all those pesky stars which are just as, if not even more, obvious in the night sky. The problem isn't picking Mars out of a black night sky, the problem is picking Mars out of a huge host of other shiny objects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... You say yourself Mars is comparable to a star. So you now have a cluttered field of search due to all those pesky stars which are just as' date=' if not even more, obvious in the night sky. The problem isn't picking Mars out of a black night sky, the problem is picking Mars out of a huge host of other shiny objects.[/quote'] Especially when you consider that at thsi distance, you can't clearly make out it's color or size. Finding a star sized object among thousands star sized objects with same luminosity and no difference in the color that your eye can percieve - that is the literal needle in a haystack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Goodwin Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... The degree of cover is certainly important but, assuming that there is enough cover (or other similar objects) to make the search non-trivial, and that the proportion of cover does not change when the area changes (i.e. we are controlling that variable), then the area that you are having to search is relevant. If there are only 20 'obvious' objects, for example, and you vary the area in which they are distributed then a larger will not substantially affect your chances, but if there are 20 objects per unit of area (say per 100 square metres) and you have to search (or look over) 400 square metres (with 80 objects distributed over that space) then it will be more difficult. The larger area is no more cluttered, but it is a larger area that is equally cluttered. OTOH I agree that this may not make a lot of difference to the game as a whole: it is and always has been a minor point of interest rather than one of importance. Ahhh, I think I'm getting where the disagreement is. If Waldo is on a 1 square meter page, and he is 1 cm by 1cm, and you halve his dimensions (thus quartering his area), you're not quadrupling the amount of area you have to look in. Relatively speaking, yes. But the search area hasn't changed. And... actually I think I'm getting what you're saying, as well. If you halve his dimensions, you're quartering his relative size -- thus 2x distance (doing the same thing) isn't halving his relative, or visible, or effective size, it's quartering it, which should logically result in two halvings of size, to -4. Is this what you're saying? I'm not convinced we need to apply the rigor of real life physics, or even Markdoc's cited studies, to this. The point of the mechanic is, a reduction in size by (amount) yields a -2 to (hit or perceive). If we're saying a halving of size (by which I've always assumed halving linear height, meaning half area) yields a -2, then there's a logical error in the distance part -- but I'm also not convinced there's a problem in the game because of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted March 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Ah, but it doesn't and this I know not just from my own experience, but from detailed analysis. I spent years working the field of TB, and when you are doing diagnosis there are three areas where you spend a lot of time scanning for small tell-tales: sputum smears looking for bacteria of a specific size and colour, or reading X-rays and CT scans, looking for small cues such as calcified lesions or "tree-in-bud" patterns (in te latter cases you are looking for distinct patterns of grey/white on a greyscale background ). As this is a crucial step (and one of the weakest links in the whole process: many cases still get missed in initial screening), a lot of effort has been spent on analysing how this is done, and how we can do it better. We know, very well, that one of the ways you can speed up that scanning process ... is to blow up the images. Make 'em larger and you can not only find things faster, but find them at a higher rate of accuracy. Your theoretical analysis leads you to the exact opposite conclusion of what happens in real life and therefore, I am afraid, must be discarded. At least, I am going to discard it because we know it's not true. Seeing doesn't work they way you seem to think it does. Yes, we have limited field of focus, but our brains process visual data holistically and are very good at picking patterns out of general data: the whole identify/focus pattern happens literally within a fraction of a second, and people spend a lot of their time "seeing" without actually focusing on anything (driving is a good example). Area is largely irrelevant. When I look out my window at the parking lot, there are dozens of cars. I don't focus on each one at a time to identify them: I can see the one red car more or less instantaneously, even if focusing on the far end of the lot. I don't need to focus - or even concentrate on it - to see it. If I want a particular black car, again I don't focus on each one - I scan swiftly over all the black cars, looking for a specific series of cues. Same with waldo. Put him - by himself - on a sheet of paper and everyone will identify him instantly, more or less regardless of size. Put him on a page with thousands of blue objects and everyone will find him almost instantly. He's hard to find only when he is put on a page with lots of things the same potential size and colour, which can't easily be scanned. Blow the image up to 4 times the size .... and he'll actually be easier to find, because you are amplifying the actual cues that you use to find him. Area to be scanned is - this we know - largely irrelevant. What counts are contrast and interference: how many things are there that hide what you are looking for? Number, not size. cheers, Mark I see where there might be some confusion here, I think. I don't doubt that if I take a 6x4 and blow it up to 12x8 then I will be able to spot something more easily, but that is because what I've done, in effect, is bring it closer, or double the size of the individual objects. Of course that is going to make things easier to spot, but that is not the point, or what I am describing. If I blow up a photograph I am simply making the image bigger, but I am also making the confusing background detail bigger. I am not adding more of it. I am not changing the degree of complexity, or camouflage, or whatever. Making something bigger or bringing it closer, is going to make it easier to spot, no problem there. I also agree that if you train someone to see things, then they can see them easier. Got that too. I am also on board with the fact that humans are pretty good at spotting patterns. Interestingly enough this is the case even if the pattern is meaningless, random or not really there. That is why if you spend a lot of time doing your 'Where's Wally/Waldo books' then you'll get better. that is training for a very specific thing (and humans are not good at learning generally - we are good at learning specifically), and if you spend long enough doing it then you'll get quicker. The problem with those book is that they are specifically designed to give you patterns that are misleading, colours and shapes that look a bit like Waldo/Wally, which will draw the eye, mislead you, that will not allow you to home in on the specific thing that you are looking for, meaning you will have to focus and re-focus on small areas, which will slow you. The more bits of small area, the greater the number of distractions, and the slower you will be to spot what you are looking for. If area is irrelevant, answer me this: if I give you four of these scan things to look at, only one of which has an actual 'thing to see' on it, are you telling me you could spot that 'thing to see' as quickly as you could if I only gave you one? Because if that were true... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markdoc Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... If area is irrelevant' date=' answer me this: if I give you four of these scan things to look at, only one of which has an actual 'thing to see' on it, are you telling me you could spot that 'thing to see' as quickly as you could if I only gave you one? Because if that were true...[/quote'] Yes, area really is (close to) irrelevant: what you are proposing is to increase the number of things to be scanned, which as I have already pointed out is a much more important factor. cheers, Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sean Waters Posted March 26, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... Well, yes, but that is what I started off saying: the point is that in four times the area, there is going to be four times the number of things to be scanned. The example you gave of the medical scans being bigger does not change the number of things being scanned, even though the area is increased. What I am talking about is looking for something at twice the range, which increases the area that you are looking at and, incidentally increases the number of things being scanned. It also makes it appear half the size, which also makes it harder to spot, but if we can correct for that: leave the thing at the same range but quadruple the area, you are making the thing harder to find, because in 4 times the area, there is 4 times as much stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Goodwin Posted March 26, 2012 Report Share Posted March 26, 2012 Re: These are small, those are far away... De gustibus non disputandum. If the rule doesn't work for you, or you don't like it, no amount of appeal to physics will change your mind, nor should it. Likewise if it does work for you or if you do like it. Any similarity the game bears to actual physics, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. ETA: I'm poking away at physics because that's where things like signal-to-noise ratio come in. Between two of you (Sean and Markdoc) you know more about how the eye and brain work together in searching, and I don't doubt physics, than ten of me -- and I think none of that really matters because we're talking about a game in which the pages about physics and eye-brain function are scattered upon the winds. (ETA, continued) Sean, what are you considering an "object"? If on a Where's W* page each person is an object -- let's say a 1 square meter page where each person is 1cm by 1cm -- and W* shrinks to .5cm by .5cm, thus reducing his area by 1/4, there aren't suddenly four times the number of objects on the page. OTOH, if you were flying above a crowd, searching for the known hooligan Waldo Williams, and you were 10m high, and decided you needed to be 20m high, then yes, the number of people in your area would be quadrupled. But that's about the only way I can see it's relevant -- if you were standing at a fixed spot, looking into a crowd, and W.W. were 10m away, if he suddenly darted away to 20m, you're still looking at the same crowd in the same field of vision. (If you went from 20m to 10m, you run the risk of looking in the one-quarter of your previous search area in which he isn't.) (cont.) I seem to recall having seen a large table of Perception modifiers of all kinds that takes into account things like clutter, distance, contrast, and so forth. I can't seem to find it in the 6E books though -- maybe it was in 5E FREd or 5ER? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.