Cognitive Hazards

Cognitive Hazards are an extremely rare type of phenomena that can be produced by the Personalization AI in Super Mario 64. As the name suggests; these phenomena can be dangerous to perceive. These phenomena can include: rapidly flashing patterns or lights, screeching Tinnitus inducing sounds, and trypophobia (fear of small holes) inducing imagery. The reason for cognitive hazards is the AI making a terrible mistake in one of its several processes (enemy discoloring, level re-arrangement, etc.), and instead of creating, say; a new music track for a new level, instead it would create a track that sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Usually, systems in video games would not be prone to such errors: but the PAI is unstable and potentially even unfinished which means that it is prone to such errors. Cognitive Hazards are usually associated with more rare and mysterious anomalies such as the Wario apparition and others.

Common Instances
Common instances of cognitive hazards can include:


 * When the AI attempts to create a new music track and creates a track with just screeching and scraping sounds
 * When the AI attempts to create an experimental animated texture or skybox and creates a texture with rapidly flashing lights or colors

Reports
Report 1:

"I was playing Mario 64, right, and I have about 20 stars. I'm in the basement and I go down the hallway to Dire, Dire Docks and the portal, instead of being the normal blue one was replaced with a screen of really fast flashing colors. It kind of gave me a headache, so I went and played Shifting Sand Land instead. It was pretty weird, though I am sure glad I do not have epilepsy."

Trivia
The phenomena of cognitive hazards may be the basis for some of the more outlandish and bizarre theories about Super Mario 64, as it is the closest the AI gets to acting maliciously towards the player.