EAGER: Collaborative: Understanding How Manipulated Images Influence People

由于大量的硬件和软件工具正在显著降低操纵数字图像所需的成本和努力，与恶意攻击者容易地通过计算机和社交网络路由篡改图像以有目的地影响观看者的意见、态度和行为相关联的风险和危险从未如此严重。虽然越来越多的人意识到图像不再代表真实的证据，但关于公众对视觉错误信息的脆弱性以及个人如何对图像真实性进行可信评估的研究存在空白。本文填补了这一研究的差距，通过一系列的实证研究，探讨了网络观众在评价图片可信度时的社会认知行为，以及这些评价如何影响他们的态度和行为。这些研究的数据将有助于预测观众最有可能接受在线图像被操纵的证据的方式，以及他们随后如何修改他们周围的情绪和信念。这项工作还着眼于网络攻击者可能利用社交媒体通过传播视觉错误信息来颠覆社会秩序的潜在方式，以及什么策略可以有效地打击这种行为。这项工作的结果将为法医图像分析软件的设计提供信息，并为新技术奠定基础，帮助互联网用户不断评估他们在线收到的中介视觉恶作剧和骗局的真实性。

As an abundance of hardware and software tools is dramatically decreasing the cost and effort required to manipulate digital images, the risks and dangers associated with malicious attackers easily routing doctored images through computer and social networks to purposefully influence viewers' opinions, attitudes, and actions have never been more severe. While there is a growing awareness that images no longer represent an authentic proof of reality, there is a gap in research about the public's vulnerabilities to visual misinformation and how individuals make credible evaluations about image authenticity. Filling the gap in research, this work conducts a series of empirical studies to find out the social and cognitive heuristics online viewers use in image credibility evaluation and how such evaluations influence their attitudes and behaviors. The data from these studies will help predict the ways by which viewers are most likely to accept evidence that online images have been manipulated and how they subsequently revise their emotions and beliefs surrounding them. This work also looks at potential ways cyber attackers could use social media to subvert social order by spreading visual misinformation, and what strategies would be effective in combating such behavior. Results from this work will inform the design of software for forensic image analysis and will lay the grounds for new technologies that help Internet users in continuously assessing the veracity of the mediated visual hoaxes and scams they receive online.