Conference article

Smartphones and iPhones, Instagram, and Twitter have drastically changed the environment of pictures and photographs. Since the beginning of 21th century, the use of pictures and photographs in research and surveys has been increasing in marketing and social sciences. However, we lack discussion about ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how’ to use pictures in surveys. Some studies reveal ‘when’ and ‘where’ to use pictures and its usefulness in surveys, however much more discussion of ‘how’ to use pictures is an urgent issue for this new research method. In this study, we focus on experience and the memory biases that may influence in surveys to give implication to ‘how’ pictures should be used. Comparison of images formed by pictures with images by texts was investigated using an internet survey research (total of 1600 respondents). F-tests of standard deviation of 20 image words to the pictures (e.g. Energetic, lively,intellectual) between the two groups (visitors and non-visitors) were conducted to confirm theinfluence of experience. From the results of the F-tests, we found out that in some cases thevariance difference of images formed by picture and by texts are significant in a few cases. Thisleaves us with a possibility that there might be an influence of experience on images by picture,where further discussion and research should be made as soon as possible.

Picture-used surveys, Experience effect, Standard Deviation