There’s not much danger we’ll eat this fuzzy cookie by accident.
Humans can rapidly pick up information from just glancing at a photograph. This interactive demonstration shows exactly how much we can perceive about the material appearances of objects with such a fast glance.
"We studied material judgments for a wide range of images of complex, real world materials. It is well known that observers can quickly extract a lot of information about objects and scenes from photographs that they have never seen before… In a set of five experiments, we show that material perception is fast and flexible, and can have the same rapidity as object recognition and scene perception. For example, even in a 40 msec presentation followed by masking, observers can tell that the image… is that of an Oreo cookie made of knit wool." – Lavanya Sharan, Ruth Rosenholtz & Edward H. Adelson
Rapid Perception of Material Properties in Natural Images>>