Open AccessThe effect of page context on magazine image categorization
Author(s) -
Westman Stina,
LaineHernandez Mari
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
proceedings of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8390
pISSN - 0044-7870
DOI - 10.1002/meet.2008.1450450255
Subject(s) - categorization , context (archaeology) , similarity (geometry) , theme (computing) , information retrieval , computer science , image (mathematics) , sorting , cluster analysis , hierarchical clustering , sort , artificial intelligence , world wide web , geography , programming language , archaeology
Image categorization research has created knowledge on the types of attributes humans use in interpreting image similarity. Little effort has gone into studying the effect of any wider contextual factors on the image groupings people create. This paper reports the results of an investigation on the effect of associated text on magazine image categorization. Image journalism professionals performed a two‐phase free sorting of 100 test images and the resulting data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively; using grounded theory methods and hierarchical clustering. The categorization behavior of the two groups was rather similar but there was a statistically significant difference in the types of names given to the categories constructed. Results indicate that having page context available results more likely in descriptions based on overall theme or story of the image. When the context is withheld, people are more prone to describe the people, objects and scenes portrayed in the images, and to combine various categorization criteria. This has implications for the design of interfaces for image archival and retrieval.