Perceptions of credibility in scientific images

This study sought to discern how people determine credibility of images in science. We predicted that certain visual cues would correspond to relatively higher credibility ratings of images; therefore, realistic images with more detail and more contextual cues would receive correspondingly higher ratings. We administered a three-part, 19-question survey to 83 University of Missouri-Rolla General Psychology students in Spring, 2006. While few of the measured variables could be correlated to credibility ratings, the surprising results of the study warrant discussion and follow-up investigations.