http://castel.bol.ucla.edu/publications/McCabeCastelCogn.pdf

Seeing is believing: the effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning.

Representing and Intervening

This paper reviews cognitive science perspectives on the design of visual-spatial displays and introduces the other papers in this topic. It begins by classifying different types of visual-spatial displays, followed by a discussion of ways in which visual-spatial displays augment cognition and an overview of the perceptual and cognitive processes involved in using displays. The paper then argues for the importance of cognitive science methods to the design of visual displays and reviews some of the main principles of display design that have emerged from these approaches to date. Cognitive scientists have had good success in characterizing the performance of well-defined tasks with relatively simple visual displays, but many challenges remain in understanding the use of complex displays for ill-defined tasks. Current research exemplified by the papers in this topic extends empirical approaches to new displays and domains, informs the development of general principles of graphic design, and addresses current challenges in display design raised by the recent explosion in availability of complex data sets and new technologies for visualizing and interacting with these data.

/pdf/the-cognitive-science-of-visual-spatial-displays-xrxeqy9b13.pdf

The Cognitive Science of Visual‐Spatial Displays: Implications for Design

This experiment investigated the effect of format (line vs. bar), viewers' familiarity with variables, and viewers' graphicacy (graphical literacy) skills on the comprehension of multivariate (three variable) data presented in graphs. Fifty-five undergraduates provided written descriptions of data for a set of 14 line or bar graphs, half of which depicted variables familiar to the population and half of which depicted variables unfamiliar to the population. Participants then took a test of graphicacy skills. As predicted, the format influenced viewers' interpretations of data. Specifically, viewers were more likely to describe x-y interactions when viewing line graphs than when viewing bar graphs, and they were more likely to describe main effects and "z-y" (the variable in the legend) interactions when viewing bar graphs than when viewing line graphs. Familiarity of data presented and individuals' graphicacy skills interacted with the influence of graph format. Specifically, viewers were most likely to generate inferences only when they had high graphicacy skills, the data were familiar and thus the information inferred was expected, and the format supported those inferences. Implications for multivariate data display are discussed.

/pdf/bar-and-line-graph-comprehension-an-interaction-of-top-down-r0e7r2yi5z.pdf

Bar and Line Graph Comprehension: An Interaction of Top‐Down and Bottom‐Up Processes

SECTION 1. Introduction 1.1 The nature of academic writing SECTION 2. The academic article 2.1 Titles 2.2 Authors 2.3. Abstracts 2.4 Key words 2.5 Introductions 2.6 Methods 2.7 Results 2.8 Discussions 2.9 Acknowledgements 2.10 References 2.11 Footnotes 2.12 Responding to referees 2.13 Proofs SECTION 3. Other genres 3.1 Books 3.2 Theses 3.3 Literature reviews 3.4 Conference papers 3.5 Tables and graphs 3.6 Posters 3.7 Book reviews 3.8 Letters to the editor 3.9 Annotated bibliographies SECTION 4. Other aspects of academic writing 4.1 Finding, keeping and disseminating information 4.2 Choosing where to publish 4.3 Delays in the publishing process 4.4 Refereeing 4.5 Sex differences 4.6 Procrastination and writer's block 4.7 Collaborative writing 4.8 Productive writers Appendices A.1 Guidelines for academic writing A.2 Guidelines for revising text A.3 Abbreviations for American States

Academic Writing and Publishing: A Practical Handbook

Because graphs provide a compact, rhetorically powerful way of representing research findings, recent theories of science have postulated their use as a distinguishing feature of science. Studies have shown that the use of graphs in journal articles correlates highly with the hardness of scientific fields, both across disciplines and across sub-fields of psychology. In contrast, the use of tables and inferential statistics in psychology is inversely related to subfield hardness, suggesting that the relationship between hardness and graph use is not attributable to differences in the use of quantitative data in subfields or their commitment to empiricism. Enhanced "graphicacy" among psychologists could contribute to the progress of psychological science by providing alternatives to significance testing and by facilitating communication across subfields.

Roxann Roberson-Nay

Papers

Constructing knowledge. The role of graphs and tables in hard and soft psychology.