50 Times People Found The Scariest Signs And Shared Them Online

It’s no secret that signs are everywhere we look. Most of them have a function and purpose, mainly to keep us out of harm’s way. We may not often think about it, but these messages play a crucial part in keeping us safe during our day-to-day lives. They inform us when to stop at an intersection, if there are threats ahead or when it’s safe to cross the road. But unfortunately, we get so used to seeing them that we don’t even bat an eye.

While we would never fear a stop sign or a road sign as we’re bombarded with these bits of information every day, you’d think that threatening announcements of dangers hard to imagine would make us stop and run the other way. Or, at the very least, make us consider what actually happened and what was the reason for their placement.

However, even the most terrifying or daunting signs that warn us of potential hazards and uneasy consequences if we refuse to obey sometimes get overlooked. And there are many reasons we ignore or even disregard these messages, whether we believe that we know better, think they don’t apply to us, or simply wish to add a dash of thrill and adrenaline into our daily lives.

Moreover, we humans have exceptional adaptability to tune out most of the awful and disruptive things happening around us. But that skill is downright useless on the road, as only a few milliseconds can mean the difference between life and death when you need to deal with troubles ahead.

According to a study in the Journal of Consumer Research, drivers react more quickly to road signs with symbols depicting motion. The researchers took a deeper look at whether different sorts of signs — particularly the ones depicting movement — do a better job of forcing drivers to pay attention to the road.

"Warning signs are static visuals, yet they can vary in their ability to evoke a sense of movement. For example, the children depicted in a school crossing sign can be drawn as if they were running or walking. We discovered that more dynamic warning signs lead to quicker responses and changes in behavior," study authors, marketing experts Luca Cian, Aradhna Krishna, and Ryan S. Elder, wrote.

It turns out that to truly make roads feel safe, they must feel dangerous. The researchers came up with five studies that examined how drivers reacted to movement on road signs. They used eye-tracking technology, surveys, and driving simulations and found that "higher dynamism" signs — think a running stick-figure pedestrian — did a better job of attracting driver attention and heightening risk perception.

In each study, the participants reacted more quickly and stopped sooner when signs had more dynamic symbols. This may, in turn, translate to more vigilance and attention from behind the wheel.

"While we have chosen to focus on traffic icons, our findings extend well beyond this domain. Since more dynamic symbols can impact behavior, increasing dynamism in recycling icons, packaging for health foods, and other contexts where behavioral changes are desirable should prove valuable for public policy and consumer welfare," the authors noted.

"From evolutionary psychology, we know that humans have developed systems to maximize the chances of detecting potential predators and other dangers. Thus, our attention system has evolved to detect actual movement automatically and quickly," co-author Cian explained to the Atlantic. "Perception of movement within a traffic sign prepares the driver for actual movement."

"We would advocate that more dynamic traffic signs be used in contexts where faster attention and reaction times are needed,” added Krishna.

But this does beg the question, do signs with threatening auras convey the message? Marc Green, Ph.D., a human factor expert with extensive experience in perception, attention, and human factors, explained that warning signs, in general, often fail to change people's behavior.

"For many years, designers focused their concern on sensory aspects of warnings: color, shape, location, pictures vs. text, size, and so on. However, recent research suggests that effective warning design depends as much on the contents of the viewer's head as on the contents of the warning's message," he explained.