Three Perceptual Tools for Seeing and Understanding Visualized Data
Steven Franconeri
Abstract
The visual system evolved and develops to process the scenes, faces, and objects of the natural world, but people adapt this powerful system to process data within an artificial world of visualizations. To extract patterns in data from these artificial displays, viewers appear to use at least three perceptual tools, including a tool that extracts global statistics, one that extracts shapes within the data, and one that produces sentence-like comparisons. A better understanding of the power, limits, and deployment of these tools would lead to better guidelines for designing effective data displays.
Topics & Concepts
PerceptionProcess (computing)Software deploymentComputer scienceHuman–computer interactionNatural (archaeology)Data visualizationArtificial intelligenceData sciencePsychologyVisualizationHistoryArchaeologyNeuroscienceOperating systemData Visualization and AnalyticsVisual perception and processing mechanismsColor perception and design