Eyetracking analysis of the use of photography in scientific dissemination

Abstract

This paper investigates photography as an enabling tool in the process of understanding scientific knowledge by the general public. Our hypothesis is that scientific texts, associated with photography, have major possibility to spark the interest of general public and facilitate the understanding of the information. It is based on Flusser's theory that images such as photography provide less abstract thoughts than texts; in Samain's  papers that classify photography as a valuable way to communicate; and other scholars theories such as Correia, Gruszynski and Castedo, Machado and Mora – who believe that speech and writing no longer need to be the only forms of scientific communication. The research is characterized as exploratory, with experimental – laboratory design and it adopts qualitative and quantitative approaches. The results show different patterns of reading, degree of attention and understanding of the scientific text, when subjects are presented to different text structures. The results show different patterns of reading, as much as different levels of attention and understanding, when the subjects were presented to diverse text structures (text with photos, text by itself and photos by themselves). The text with photos was better understood and considered easy to read, followed by the text by itself. The least understood material was the one that presented only photos. Participants who read texts considered that photos helped reading and apprehending its content. The group that read only photos missed the text. It is considered that the research hypothesis was confirmed.