In a follow-up experiment, the researchers asked ten people to rapidly evaluate 1,800 photos each. They found that participants could accurately gauge up to 11 lightning branches. As the number of branches increased, people strongly underestimated the number of branches, with an exponentially growing gap between actual and perceived figures.

The finding is consistent with the ways humans are known to assess numbers, the authors noted. Below five, we’re able to subitize, or rapidly judge numbers of items without counting. Between six and ten, we count. Above ten, we estimate, with decreasing accuracy. This could explain why artists rarely portray lightning with more than 11 strands, Dr. Horváth said.

Simplified, zigzag images of lightning are also culturally ingrained (think of the lightning emoji or the common symbol for electricity). The imagery originated with ancient Greek and Roman depictions of Jupiter’s and Zeus’s thunderbolts, Dr. Horváth said.

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The new work fits into a long history of scientists drawing a boundary between artistic and photographic representations of lightning — and an even longer history of scientists and artists pitting their fields against one another, said Jennifer Tucker, a history professor at Wesleyan University who was not involved in the study.

In the mid-19th century, meteorology was a new discipline, and its practitioners struggled to move people’s understanding of weather away from superstition and folklore.

“They wanted to replace what they derisively called ‘weather fallacies’ with ‘weather truths’ or ‘facts,’” Dr. Tucker said. Among such myths was the idea that thunderbolts were material objects that fell from the sky.