How Pictures Skew Our Judgment

An article at Ars summarizes a study into how simply seeing pictures can alter what we believe, even if the pictures don't provide any information about the topic at hand (abstract). Researchers asked true-or-false questions to a group of test subjects about whether a minor celebrity was still alive. When they provided a picture of the celebrity, more people evaluated the statement as 'true' than when no picture was provided. The researchers then switched the question, asking whether it was true or false that the celebrity was dead. Again, the subjects shown a picture were more likely to respond with 'true.' Experiments also showed this phenomenon wasn't limited to questions about people, but general knowledge as well. "The authors spend a bit of time discussing why this sort of truth bias might arise. In cases where we have rich information—a photo or detailed description of something—it's easier to pull additional information out of our memory. So, even if a photo doesn't tell us much about whether the person is alive, it does make it easier to retrieve relevant information on them—if they're wearing a suit in the photo, we might reason they're a political or financial figure, etc. When the information flows that readily, we're more likely to conclude that we're familiar with the question that's being posed, and will then tend to conclude it's true."

Comments

The cake is a lie!

[Dave Whiteside]

seriously -
we perceive stuff though our eyes and the brain makes up a lot of stuff...
put people in a darkened room and ask the same questions

Is this true?

[JustAnotherIdiot]

Pics or GTFO.

Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[ackthpt]

Class in college .. here's a photo. Everyone looks at it.

There's a young man in a cap and gown with what appears to be a diploma. A smiling man is standing to one side, a smiling woman to the other and in the forground is a girl about 12 looking bored.

Assertions, true or false: The father is proud of his son. The graduate's younger sister wants an ice cream. The mother is very happy.

The first assertion is not necessarily true (therefore false), how do we know the smiling man is father, uncle, family friend, whatever?

The second assertion is not necessarily true, how do you know she is related to the graduate? Where does it say anything about ice-cream? She could potentially be a young boy with long hair in girls clothing.

The third assertion, mother? How do we know the woman has children? How do we know any of those present is related. It's also false.

Quite fasciniating watching the light go on (perhaps for the first time in their lives) of my classmates. I challenged the assertions immediately because, being a rather literal programmer, I didn't see any statements of fact with the photo, so everything had to be assumptions (and who codes on assumptions? Ok.. lots of people do, that's why we have so many security problems, lack of useful feedback when things don't work and poor interfaces.)

Now consider there are tens of millions of people who haven't even had an introduction to Critical Thinking and they are influenced by advertising, politcal speeches,much of the garbage on talk radio and those evil stinkers who talk young men and women into committing atrocities.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[wonkey_monkey]

not necessarily true (therefore false)

I'm not clear on this bit...

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[Wandering Voice]

I find that this is only true about 83% of the time, however my evidence may be anecdotal.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[TheDarkMaster]

Consider also how much convenient is that most people are not able to use critical thinking. It's much harder to control those who think critically and politicians, bankers and priests know this.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they do, you must assume they are false.

You're heterosexual.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[ackthpt]

Agreed. Critical thinking classes should be in high school, and mandatory.

Critical Thinking is seen as a threat to a lot of groups, as well as some parents. I think this is why such a simple, yet neglected concept is left to college, where it's at the option of the student to take the class, rather than have kids coming home challenging their parents, church and community leaders.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[Baloroth]

The second assertion is not necessarily true, how do you know she is related to the graduate?

So, the assumption that the man holding the "diploma" is indeed a graduate goes unquestioned? Anyways, the problem with your example is that the picture is actually most probably (though of course not definitely) of a graduate with his proud father, mother, and bored sister. Since those assumptions are probable, they are perfectly reasonable and if not given further information, there is no reason to assume otherwise since those would, also, be further assumptions. Indeed, it would be unreasonable not to form assumptions about the situation in the picture, since that would be effectively denying yourself information about the most probable case. That is, indeed, why humans make those assumptions in the first place. Obviously, these are still assumptions, so they must be revised as soon as further evidence becomes known and therein lies the key problem: people refusing to revise their earlier assumptions, not the initial assumption itself.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[SillyHamster]

"Not (yet?) proven true" is not "false".

In logic, it's trivial to flip any statement so that your default presumption of falsehood becomes the exact opposite given a different statement

"John is a liar" -> False, he must be an honest man!

"John is an honest man" -> False, he must be a liar!

Same rule, opposite outcomes based on a completely arbitrary starting point.

When asked to evaluate a true/false statement, a person has 3 options, not 2. True, False, and "I Don't Know". Asserting a true statement to be false is just as wrong as asserting a false statement to be true. If one lacks the information to evaluate the veracity of a statement, the correct default is to acknowledge one's ignorance, instead of making a false claim.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[westlake]

Class in college .. here's a photo. Everyone looks at it.

There's a young man in a cap and gown with what appears to be a diploma. A smiling man is standing to one side, a smiling woman to the other and in the forground is a girl about 12 looking bored.

Assertions, true or false: The father is proud of his son. The graduate's younger sister wants an ice cream. The mother is very happy.

Which would be an accurate description of tens or hundreds of millions of graduation photographs. It would be trivial exercise to find similar examples in your own family albums across several generations.

It can be easy to recognize dissonance.

The "son" doesn't resemble his "parents." The "father's" suit is crisply pressed and expensive. The "mother's" dress cheap and worn. Not Sunday-best as you would expect for the occasion.

She could potentially be a young boy with long hair in girls clothing.

She could be, but, realistically, what are the chances a long haired boy will be wearing girl's clothing in what appears to be a formally posed family photograph?

It is not the classroom exercise I object to. It is the credence the geek gives to extreme and improbable explanations for otherwise quite ordinary events. Asimov once wrote that robots were logical but not reasonable. The distinction is important.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[thecatt]

People who make statements need to provide evidence that they are true. Until they do, you must assume they are false.

Why should I assume they are false? To assume anything is foolish, particularly in the given example where it is more likely the statements are true. The correct answer to the question of whether any of those statements is true is "Probably". Claiming something is false because you don't have all the facts is just as bad as claiming it's true.

This "critical thinking" you espouse sounds more like simple contrariness.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[wisnoskij]

What? That makes no sense particularly in the binary true false answer scenario. If you are told that some celebrity you have never heard of before is dead but no proof is given (and lets assume for some reason you have no reason to either believe or disbelieve the person talking to you) then you must NOT just assume that the opposite is truth. Believing false or the opposite is no better than believing true or some arbitrary statement.

You might say it is 50-50 and cannot tell with any certainty that it is true or false. or you might say, the guy looks like his father and it looks like the kid just graduated and it looks and is logical that his father would be proud (even if that is not him) so if we had to pick true or false, well statistically true is better then false.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[bws111]

No, it is still not a false assertion. No assertion can be made either way.

If the statement "the father is proud of his son" is false, then the statement "the father is not proud of his son" must be true. But it isn't - we simply don't know.

The only way any of those statements could be asserted to be either 'true' or 'false' is if they are prefixed with something along the lines of "We know from this picture that...". Now your true or false statements are not about the happiness of the father, but whether or not you know something.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[bws111]

That makes no sense. Suppose the following statements had been made:

"The father is proud of his son"
"The father is not proud of his son"

How can both of those statements be false? If they are both false, then they are both true, because they are opposites of each other.

The correct answer is not "false", it is "I don't know".

Hopefully, the actual statements we something along the lines of "We know from this picture that the father is proud of his son". That one IS false, because we do not know.

Re:Reminds me of Critical Thinking

[wonkey_monkey]

People who make statements need to provide evidence that they are true. Until they do, you must assume they are false.

No, people are free to assume whatever the hell way they want. If they're aware of the limits of their assumption, all the better. That notwithstanding, you weren't talking about assuming. You were declaring a statement to false based on the lack of 100% iron-clad proof.

Powerful brainwashing knowledge

[GameboyRMH]

This combined with the power of the Baskerville font will empower you to crush the free will of others, MUAHAHAHA!

Re:Powerful brainwashing knowledge

[Anonymous Coward]

I am compelled to disagree.

Re:Powerful brainwashing knowledge

[Eponymous Hero]

i couldn't help but notice what you did there.

Re:Powerful brainwashing knowledge

[the_humeister]

We are constrained by the physical laws of the universe. We have no more free will than a rock. We just happen to be more mobile.

basically the entire basis of montage theory

[Trepidity]

Filmmakers noticed early on that juxtaposing images had significant effects on perception, with the Kuleshov Effect being one famous demonstration.

Re:basically the entire basis of montage theory

[Trepidity]

Responding to self after tracking down a copy of the paper:

One interesting thing they suggest is that, since in this study the "truthiness" effect happened in both directions, or even with unrelated images, previous studies showing that images produce a bias might need to be re-run with control images that are unrelated, i.e. placebo images.

For example, the paper mentions a 2008 paper that found public trust in neuroscience findings was higher if accompanied by an image of a brain scan. That article speculated that "part of the fascination, and the credibility, of brain imaging research lies in the persuasive power of the actual brain images themselves". But the authors of this paper point out that perhaps it was just the presence of any image at all: what would happen if you re-represented the same articles, not with brain scans, but with just photos of the neuroscientists, or of the MRI machine? The authors hypothesize that you might get more people believing in the results in those cases, too, in which case it wouldn't actually be that the brain-scan images are serving any persuasive or evidentiary role in and of themselves.

Unless one has Aspergers?

[CODiNE]

I've noticed that non-geeks seem to have a very difficult time separating facts from opinions or feelings.  On the other hand those on the autism spectrum tend to have an internal citations list. I may still have many incorrect beliefs but I at least know where the ideas came from and can check the sources later on.  Slowly weeding out the false ideas until all my knowledge is perfected. (OMG! I've turned into an Objectivist!) </sarcasm>

But if you're going to ask me T/F if say... Richard Simmons is dead;  I simply can't answer true or false on that one.  Show me a picture and... well that's not relevant to the question.

*Gets up, leaves testing room*

INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

Duh...

[mspohr]

They must be alive... I just saw a picture of them.

Re:all the GWB photos from the last decade

[smooth wombat]

have the blogs call him an idiot and back it up by bad looking pictures

Trust me, you didn't need a picture of the guy to consider him an idiot.

Bad Title

[StormReaver]

The title should be, "How not having an, "I don't know" option on true/false research tests will cause people to guess, frequently invalidating the results of the research that would be quite different with the third option."

But then, that doesn't fit into a short title block.

Re:Yeah well.....

[ackthpt]

Most people are idiots. They immediately jump to a conclusion based upon flimsy evidence like photos (never thinking maybe the photo has been doctored), or something they read at FOX or MSNBC.com, or were told on facebook. (See my sig for examples of these idiots.)

My favorite quote on the subject: There are people who will doubt a panel of highly educated experts who have gathered evidence, studied, assembled the facts and presented them in a thoughtful manner, but will accept for indesputable fact the word of a blowhard on the radio, TV or internet, who has nothing at all to back up their assertions.

do you believe it?

"Critical Thinking" idiots

[oGMo]

not necessarily true (therefore false)

I'm not clear on this bit...

That's because it's wrong. This statement is not valid. It may be true or false.

From the GP:

Now consider there are tens of millions of people who haven't even had an introduction to Critical Thinking and they are influenced by advertising, politcal speeches,much of the garbage on talk radio and those evil stinkers who talk young men and women into committing atrocities.

"Critical Thinking" is the security theater equivalent of thinking. Call it "Thinking Theater" if you will: it makes a show of thought while being utterly uninformed and mindless. The grandparent is a perfect example. I suggest a rigorous study of logic (both formal and informal) so you can actually analyze statements, and rhetoric, so you can be aware of the communication techniques you will encounter.

Common use in Media outlets.

[Petron]

I really hate to bring this up, but I hope we can focus on the topic, and not skew off to debate the court/political side of things....

Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman news coverage.

When the news story first reported most of the newspapers and news agencies showed the picture of Trayvon in the red shirt and George in an orange jumper. There were other pictures available, so somebody chose these pictures.

Trayvon's picture was of when he was 12 years old. The picture has a very happy looking kid, with a big smile. Eyes are bright, and the picture is very friendly, very innocent.
George's picture is of a old mug shot, he was heavy, unshaven, the picture could be lightened or darkened (I've seen lighter and darker pictures, unsure what the original looked like). George is not smiling, unhappy, depressing.

Now there is a headline "Man kills teen" and phrase "Man kills in self-defense"

With the images provided we make assumptions.
The Trayvon is 12 years old. False, Trayvon is 17.
George is a convicted felon/criminal. False, George was arrested, but charges were dropped (yes I know there is some claims on this, but the charges were dropped.).
George is white, Trayvon is black, this is racism. False, George is Hispanic. George is known for tutoring black children for free on the weekends, and was the only person to come to the defense of a homeless black man. The FBI investigated George and found no evidence that he is racist in any way.

So, the images and headline imply the idea: "White racist convicted felon kills innocent happy black child."

Other shading comes from the text - small example: Using "Trayvon" and "Zimmerman" for names. "Trayvon" is a very "black-sounding" name. Zimmerman is a common German name (Germans aren't known for any racists right?).

And the damage is done. People have picked sides and have dug themselves in. Even now when we have up-to-date pictures (few are using the old red-shirt/orange jumper pics), the original images have set themselves in the minds of the people. What would have the story been like if the media outlets used the up-to-date pictures, rather than the kid/convict pictures?

Always interesting but nothing new

[butchersong]

This doesn't have anything to do with "pictures" in particular. You can ask someone a question that requires them to prioritize ethics or results about their job and they will choose a different path depending on if you've recently asked them an ethical question vs a results prioritizing question. You ask someone to pick a different colored card from a table in a sentance that contains a word that rhymes with one of those colors... same result. This is just how the mind works. You bring something to the forefront of someone's mind and they will prioritize it. Haven't seen someone for a while, more likely to lean towards maybe that old dude is dead. I think we've known this forever. At least.. street magicians and con artists have.