cognitohazard

plural cognitohazards

1. literatureA sensory signal (such as an image or sound) that directly causes harmful or undesired physiological effects to one who senses or perceives it.

   The symbol on that piece of paper is a cognitohazard which puts everyone who reads it in a week-long coma.

   5 more examples

   SUMBITCH. I started listening to http://nyan.cat/ again and now I can't turn it off. #memetic #cognitohazard #scp

   2011 April 28, @triggurgoat, Twitter, archived from the original on 03 Jan 2023

   CAUTION! High-grade Cognitohazard in effect!

   2011 July 29, @LexLevinholt, Twitter, archived from the original on 03 Jan 2023

   The one about Qpple hardware being a cognitohazard? (I made that up, BTW. :D )

   2013 February 27, neurotrashboy, “Place name of the week”, in alt.running.out.of.newsgroup.names (Usenet), retrieved 09 Dec 2022

   SCP-2359’s primary anomalous property is a cognitohazard that propagates to anyone who makes visual, auditory or informational contact with it. The infection impresses a false identity and memories of SCP-2359 onto the mind of the affected subject.

   2016 January 29, StringentCurry, “SCP-2359”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 11 Dec 2022

   Numerous people have reported, or, more accurately, been discovered, as having been subjected to the proscribed work The King in Yellow. […] For one thing, we’re not even sure there’s anything useful in the King play. It’s a complete cognitohazard.

   2017, Zachary Adam, Sanity Line (Arcane Revolution Series), CreateSpace, →ISBN

2. literatureAn infohazard.