A comparative study of Flickr tags and index terms in a general image collection

concepts (I) 218 (5.24%) 92.39 0.22 (0.64) 25 (0.67%) 96.84 0.03 (0.16) Art historical information (I) 66 (1.59%) 93.98 0.07 (0.29) 88 (2.37%) 99.21 0.09 (0.32) People-related attributes (I) 111 (2.67%) 96.65 0.11 (0.37) 29 (0.78%) 100 0.03 (0.19) Visual elements (P) 75 (1.80%) 98.45 0.08 (0.35) 0 (0.00%) 100 0.00 (0.00) Color (P) 64 (1.54%) 100 0.07 (0.35) 0 (0.00%) 100 0.00 (0.00) Total 4159 (100%) 4.27 (4.04) 3709 (100%) 3.73 (1.48) Note. P=Perceptual; I= interpretive. TABLE 3. Distribution of Flickr tags and index terms according to two broad categories of Jörgensen’s (1998) categories of image attributes. Flickr tags (n= 975) Index terms (n= 996) Category Frequency (%) M (SD) Frequency (%) M (SD) Perceptual 3051(73.36%) 3.13(3.30) 2622(70.69%) 2.63(1.24) Interpretive 1108(26.64%) 1.14(1.43) 1087(29.31%) 1.09(0.81) Total 4159(100%) 4.27(4.04) 3709(100%) 3.73(1.48) Photographic Archive (76.87%), even though indexers at the Archive used refiners with more nonunique index terms than unique ones. Flickr users assigned more than 100 times as many unique tags than unique index terms assigned to images in the St. Andrews Library Photographic Archive. On the other hand, there were only 4.3 times as many unique index terms with refiners as Flickr tags with refiners. Table 4 presents the frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations for numbers of Flickr tags and St. Andrews Library Photographic Archive index terms within Enser and McGregor’s four categories. A closer look at the frequencies and the mean numbers of tags and index terms that are either unique or nonunique and are with or without refiners reveals an even more apparent difference according to Enser and McGregor’s (1992) framework of image attributes. These differences were confirmed by results of a chi-square analysis and subsequent t-tests. The chi-square analysis resulted in a significant chi-square value, χ2 (3, N = 7,868)= 4261, p< 0.05. An independent group’s t-test (with unequal variances) was also conducted to see if the mean number of unique and nonunique Flickr tags and index terms were comparable. The t-tests resulted in significant differences (p< 0.05). These findings are in contrast with Enser and McGregor’s (1992) analysis of 2,700 requests submitted to the Hulton Deutsch collection (a general-purpose picture archive that is part of Getty Images). Their analysis found that the queries varied in their focus of topics. They showed that the bulk of the requests were for either specific objects or events and often refined by a number of facets such as spatial and temporal facets. In terms of the uniqueness and refiners used, the two samples (tags and