Visual Matters: Connecting Aesthetic Appeal and Production Quality of Photos, Infographics and Data Visualizations to Credibility of Social Media Posts
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866916066061451264 |
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| author | Khawar, Salman Lu, Yingdan Peng, Yilang Yeon, Jiyoung Shen, Cuihua |
| author_facet | Khawar, Salman Lu, Yingdan Peng, Yilang Yeon, Jiyoung Shen, Cuihua |
| contents | The rapid proliferation of visual content raises fundamental questions about how different visual formats and features shape perceived credibility. Drawing on processing fluency theory, this research examines how visuals shape credibility judgments. We focus on three popular formats-photos, infographics, and data visualizations-comparing them to text-only posts, and test how two visual features, aesthetic appeal and production quality, influence credibility through processing fluency as a mediating mechanism. Through a preregistered experiment with 1200 US participants, we found that visual posts are generally perceived as more credible than text-only posts but this credibility advantage only applies to photos and infographics, not to data visualizations. Aesthetic appeal increases perceived credibility, partially mediated by processing fluency, while production quality had no significant effect on credibility across formats. These findings differentiate visual formats, advance conceptualizations of visual features, and identify processing fluency as a key mechanism for theorizing credibility across multimodal contexts. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_26309 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Visual Matters: Connecting Aesthetic Appeal and Production Quality of Photos, Infographics and Data Visualizations to Credibility of Social Media Posts Khawar, Salman Lu, Yingdan Peng, Yilang Yeon, Jiyoung Shen, Cuihua Human-Computer Interaction Computers and Society Social and Information Networks The rapid proliferation of visual content raises fundamental questions about how different visual formats and features shape perceived credibility. Drawing on processing fluency theory, this research examines how visuals shape credibility judgments. We focus on three popular formats-photos, infographics, and data visualizations-comparing them to text-only posts, and test how two visual features, aesthetic appeal and production quality, influence credibility through processing fluency as a mediating mechanism. Through a preregistered experiment with 1200 US participants, we found that visual posts are generally perceived as more credible than text-only posts but this credibility advantage only applies to photos and infographics, not to data visualizations. Aesthetic appeal increases perceived credibility, partially mediated by processing fluency, while production quality had no significant effect on credibility across formats. These findings differentiate visual formats, advance conceptualizations of visual features, and identify processing fluency as a key mechanism for theorizing credibility across multimodal contexts. |
| title | Visual Matters: Connecting Aesthetic Appeal and Production Quality of Photos, Infographics and Data Visualizations to Credibility of Social Media Posts |
| topic | Human-Computer Interaction Computers and Society Social and Information Networks |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.26309 |