This paper aims to present the influence of visual context in the studies concerned with messages’ comprehension through images, identifying the effective contributions derived from the analysis of images (of educational and / or instructional nature) when isolated presented or incorporated in a graphic context. In image analysis' studies presented, image is considered as a communicating element, revealing its typologies and functions, expressed in practical studies and tests of image comprehension that show how the graphic message is interpreted isolated or inserted in context.