Visual Matters: Connecting Aesthetic Appeal and Production Quality of Photos, Infographics and Data Visualizations to Credibility of Social Media Posts

2026-05-25

AI Summary

This study investigates how different visual content formats—specifically image-text combinations, infographics, and data visualizations compared to plain text—affect perceived credibility of social media posts. Grounded in processing fluency theory, a preregistered large-scale online experiment (N = 1200) coupled with structural equation modeling reveals that image-text and infographics significantly enhance credibility, whereas data visualizations do not produce such an effect. Aesthetic appeal indirectly boosts credibility by increasing processing fluency, while production quality shows no significant impact. This work is the first to differentiate the unique effects of distinct visual formats on credibility judgments, establishes processing fluency as a key mediating mechanism, and redefines the theoretical role of visual features in multimodal credibility assessment.

Abstract

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.

Problem

• visual credibility
• aesthetic appeal
• production quality
• processing fluency
• social media

Innovation

• processing fluency
• aesthetic appeal
• production quality
• visual credibility
• multimodal communication