A sample of 433 university students from various institutions did blind assessments of twenty-two current New Jersey landscape images. Those they perceived as unappealing tended to be attributed disproportionately to New Jersey while those that were appealing were seldom credited to that state. In a self-assessment, these same students identified media sources as their most important source of place perceptions. Mental maps play a significant role in geographic learning, but in the case of New Jersey and other "image challenged" states, what is the impact of popular images on both teaching and learning? (Contains 9 figures.)