Some important general notes

• There is no need for details, e.g., instead of "striped red and yellow socks", just "socks" works!If you can recognize something rather narrowly, example: "finch", please do so! Some less experienced of us might just say "bird". And that's the point: we are not all expert yet we can look at this images and will think something. Let's see what!

• Plural or singular won't matter, e.g., either "sock" or "socks" will work just the same

• UK or US English spelling and choice of words are both fine

• We acknowledge that some images might be best described by two words (or compound words), that is why we specify that it should be a single concept, but not necessarily a single word. It is absolutely OK to skip an images if the appropriate word just doesn't come to mind.

• If there are multiple objects in one image, just trust your gut and name (and classify) the most prominent, the most relevant, the first one you clearly identify.

• Some images are just plainly ambiguous and tricky to label/classify. This uncertainty is very important for us: if researchers use this image, what representation should they expect to be activate by most people? Let's find out together!

• Fruits and plants are currently under non-living yet natural kinds. You can see an overview of the classification scheme we're using at the bottom of this page.. As any classification scheme, it is arbitrary and incomplete - we acknowledge that! Things we can eat are particularly tricky to classify: sometimes researchers consider them natural/used-to-be-living items (e.g., banana) but sometimes artificial/not-a-living-thing (e.g., banana bread). Feel free to use the option "another" when nothing seems to fit!

Why are we doing this?

We would love to know more about the human brain, the most intelligent machine...to date! Neuroscience is a complex business and we decided to start with a specific problem: how do we became so good at processing visual stimuli? In few seconds we know whether we want to run away from a hyaena or pet a cat. Critically, we believe that learning more about how biological neural network process images can help us build better artificial ones that attempt to mimic human performance.

Why these images? Where are they coming from?

We scrubbed the web for ecologically valid and copyright free images spanning different natural and artificial items: from animals to tools, from human bodies to vehicles. Our goal was to ensure that images represent real life plausible stimuli, things we might encounter in daily. Well, we do hope you don't cross a shark that often...

Why does this project needs crowdsourcing?

To be able to provide the community with a truly useful dataset, we need to know what a human being sees in each of these images. Is it me or that is a snake? Shall we run?
Thus, we need many (many!) labels from different people before we assign a certain label to a given image.

What will be done with the data?

We love data! So rest assure we will be taking the very best care of your responses! The first goal is to release the carefully curated, human labeled dataset to the scientific community. We expect it will be used to conduct research in both machine learning (e.g., can we teach algorithms to see in the images what human do?) and neuroscience (e.g., can we lean more about how the brain process visual stimuli?)

Are these images copyrighted? Who gave you the right to use them?

All images, including the ones with human beings, were sourced from websites offering pictures under Creative Commons Licence, i.e. Flickr, Pexels & Unsplash. One of our goals is to make sure that future experiments in cognitive neuroscience and machine learning can re-use these images for research purposes.

Shall I say Welsh Corgi or just dog? Are plants alive? Should cotton socks be considered natural items?

All great questions. Let's start by saying that it should be relatively easy to identify one main item in the foreground. If not, feel free to skip to another image. Once you identify the main item, simply ask yourself: what is this? Write down the first name you would assign to that item. If there is a second one worth mentioning, you will have the chance to later. As for the classification, again, consider your first instinct and pick whichever option makes more sense to you.

Can I get a certificate for the hours/classifications done?

Sure, please fill in this form.

I have more questions (or comments!), who can I talk to?

Please, feel free to write to valentina[dot]borghesani[st]criugm[dot]qc[dot]ca