ZenDruid- I'm regularly browsing the internet for images, if you want to call that research.
"Images also help me find and realize ideas. I look at hundreds of very different, contrasting images and I pinch details from them, rather like people who eat from other people’s plates."
-Francis Bacon
Yes... I do a lot of this as well: endlessly looking at random images on the Internet and elsewhere: paintings, prints, photographs, graphics... and every possible subject you can imagine. The human figure, of course... but also architecture, poster design, furniture, fashion, food, etc... My Pinterest collection includes folders on Batman, Tarot Cards, Flowers, Architecture, Alice in Wonderland, Lingerie, Vampires, Literary Illustrations, Rococo, Film, Spiderman, Art Nouveau, Mermaids, Fashion, Classic Pin-Ups, Edgar Allen Poe, Posters, Classic Hollywood Celebrity Portraits... even colors: Pink, Red, Blue.
I suspect that my reading and the music I listen to contribute to my artistic efforts just as much.
But there are also times in which I make a conscious effort to research specific themes or images. I'll look through hundreds of photographs to find an anatomical reference for a desired position of a hand or foot. The painting I have been recently working on... which I thought was going to be on the theme of Psyche and Amor has suddenly changed to Flora/Poison Ivy. I've been looking at a vast array of paintings of Flora from throughout Art History as well as images of the comic villain/anti-hero, Poison Ivy. I've also been reading up on poisonous/dangerous plants and looking for images of the same. Botticelli's Primavera has long been one of my favorite paintings... perhaps my absolute favorite. I was always impressed by the array of flora/flowers Botticelli put in the painting and I have been looking to do something similar with poisonous plants: Poison Ivy (a well-known plant around here), Poison Oak, Poison Sumac, Deadly Nightshade, Belladonna, Blackthorn, Chinese Lanterns, Death Cap, Destroying Angel, Giant Hogweed, Foxglove, Hemlock, Pokeweed, Stinging Nettle, etc...