[seabass-labrax]

Broadly speaking, I agree with the claim - but I'm very suspicious of the study. We'd have to know the methodology to be sure (maybe you have a link to this?), but there are many factors that could lead participants to ignore the warning signs and persevere. For instance, the participants may have been offered a sum of money for their involvement, and believed (consciously or subconsciously) that they had to 'pass' the test to earn it. Or, it could have been pride and the desire not to lose face; perhaps even the sentiment of "the sooner I can finish this daft test, the sooner I can leave"!

There is a common attitude in the computer industry that designers/developers know better than users, but software users are representative of the general population and are thus no more or less intelligent than average. I believe it's primarily a lack of understanding of how software works that makes online phishing scams work. 'Brick Wall UX' can only go so far to compensate for that, and it comes at a cost of making software less flexible for the end-user.