Input Modality Shapes What Detection Systems Can Find

Image-based dark pattern detection tools identified 19 pattern types. Text-based tools identified 22 types. Only 10 types were detectable by both modalities.

9 pattern types are detectable only through visual analysis. 12 types are detectable only through text analysis. This suggests dark patterns manifest differently across modalities, some are fundamentally visual tricks, others are linguistic manipulation.

No multimodal detection approach achieved superior coverage by combining both input types. The gap between image and text detection highlights that dark patterns exploit different cognitive channels.

Related: 05-atom—detection-coverage-gap