To the survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfujaTdkiyrwagGO4Cv_JjGQ_IIWt9v4tO54aVBSiF7J6a_pw/viewform?usp=header
In my last blog post, I wrote about the process of designing my survey and how a small pre-test helped me improve the instructions. After making these changes, I finally felt ready to share the questionnaire with participants.
The survey starts with a short introduction. I explain the purpose of my research and introduce the three image categories that participants will see during the study: authentic photographs, AI-edited photographs and fully AI-generated images. Since the pre-test showed that the term AI-edited could be misunderstood, I also explain that normal photo editing, such as changing the brightness or colours of an image, is not considered AI editing in my study. Only changes to the actual content of an image count as AI editing.
Before participants start looking at the images, I ask them three short questions.
The first question asks for their age group. Since I want people of different ages to take part in my survey, this information will help me compare the results later. I am curious to see whether younger participants, who may have grown up with AI tools and social media, perform differently from older participants.
The second question asks how familiar participants are with AI-generated images. Today, many people have already seen AI-generated content online, but others may have very little experience with it. I think this could have an influence on how people judge the images in my study.
The third question is one of my favourites because it asks participants to rate themselves before the experiment even begins. I ask them how well they think they can recognise AI-generated or AI-edited images. Later, I can compare their self-assessment with their actual results. It will be interesting to see if people who feel confident are really better at recognising AI images, or if confidence and performance are not always connected.
After these introductory questions, the main part of the survey begins.
Participants see one image at a time and answer the same two questions for every image.
First, they decide how they think the image was created. They can choose between an authentic photograph, an AI-edited photograph, a fully AI-generated image or Not sure.
After that, they rate how confident they are in their decision on a scale from one to five.
I decided to include the Not sure option because I did not want to force participants to guess if they were genuinely unsure. I also think that the confidence rating adds another interesting layer to the results. Someone might choose the correct answer but still feel very uncertain, while someone else could confidently choose the wrong category. Looking at both the answers and the confidence ratings might reveal interesting patterns later.
While the survey itself is quite simple, every question has a purpose. My goal was to create a questionnaire that is easy to complete but still provides enough information to answer my research question.
In my next blog post, I will explain how I selected the images for the survey and why this turned out to be one of the most difficult parts of the whole project.
