Abstract
The timeworn claim that a picture is worth a thousand words is generally well-supported by empirical evidence, suggesting that diagrams and other information graphics can enhance human cognitive capacities in a wide range of contexts and applications. But not every picture is worth the space it occupies. What qualities make a diagram an effective and efficient conduit of information to the human mind? In this article we argue that the best diagrams depict information the same way that our internal mental representations do. That is, “visual thinking” operates largely on relatively sketchy, cartoon-like representations of the physical world, translating sensory input into efficient codes before storing and manipulating it. Effective diagrams will assist this process by stripping away irrelevant detail while preserving or highlighting essential information about objects and their spatial relations. We discuss several examples that illustrate this “Representational Correspondence Principle,” and we consider its implications for the design of systems that use diagrams to represent abstract, conceptual knowledge, such as social networks, financial markets, or web content hierarchies.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
Binet, A.: Les grandes mémoires: Résumé d’une enquête sur les joueurs d’echecs. Revue des Deux Mondes 117, 826–859 (1893); Translated by Simmel, M.L., Barron, S.B.: as Mnemonic virtuosity: A study of chess players. Genetic Psychology Monographs 74, 127–162 (1966)
Binet, A.: Psychologie des grands calculateurs et joueurs d’échecs. [Psychology of great calculators and chess players.]. Hachette, Paris (1894)
Bransford, J.D., Johnson, M.K.: Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior 11, 717–726 (1972)
Chabris, C.F., Kosslyn, S.M.: Illustrated editorial is value-added text. Folio, February 1995, pp. 28–29 (1995)
Chernoff, H.: The use of faces to represent points in k-dimensional space graphically. Journal of the American Statistical Association 68(342), 361–368 (1973)
Collins, A.M., Loftus, E.F.: A spreading activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review 82, 407–428 (1975)
Fellman, P.V., Sawyer, D., Wright, R.: Modeling terrorist networks: Complex systems and first principles of counter-intelligence. In: Presented at NATO and Central Asia: Enlargement, Civil – Military Relations, and Security, Kazach American University/North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), May 14–16 (2003)
Fine, R.: The psychology of blindfold chess: An introspective account. Acta Psychologica 24, 352–370 (1965)
Finke, R.A., Shepard, R.N.: Visual functions of mental imagery. In: Boff, K.R., Kaufman, L., Thomas, J.P. (eds.) Handbook of perception and human performance, pp. 37–55. Wiley-Interscience, New York (1986)
Fischer, M.H.: Do irrelevant depth cues affect the comprehension of bar graphs? Applied Cognitive Psychology 14, 151–162 (2000)
Flury, B., Riedwyl, H.: Graphical representation of multivariate data by means of asymmetrical faces. Journal of the American Statistical Association 76, 757–765 (1981)
Gillan, D.J., Richman, E.H.: Miminalism and the syntax of graphs. Human Factors 36, 619–644 (1994)
Haxby, J.V., Hoffman, E.A., Gobbini, M.I.: Human neural systems for face recognition and social communication. Biological Psychiatry 51, 59–67 (2002)
Johnson, M.K., Raye, C.L.: Reality monitoring. Psychological Review 88, 67–85 (1981)
Kosslyn, S.M.: Visual consciousness. In: Grossenbacher, P. (ed.) Finding consciousness in the brain, pp. 79–103. John Benjamins, Amsterdam (2001)
Kosslyn, S.M.: Image and mind. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1980)
Kosslyn, S.M.: Graphics and human information processing: a review of five books. Journal of the American Statistical Association 80, 499–512 (1985)
Kosslyn, S.M.: Elements of graph design. Freeman, New York (1994a)
Kosslyn, S.M.: Image and brain. MIT Press, Cambridge (1994b)
Kosslyn, S.M., Chabris, C.F.: The mind is not a camera, the brain is not a VCR: Some psychological guidelines for designing charts and graphs. In: Aldus Magazine, September/October 1993, pp. 35–38 (1993)
Kosslyn, S.M., Chabris, C.F.: Minding information graphics. Folio, February 1992, 69–71 (1992)
Kosslyn, S.M., Chabris, C.F., Hamilton, S.E.: Designing for the mind: Five psychological principles of articulate graphics. Multimedia Review 1, 23–29 (1990)
Kosslyn, S.M., Ganis, G., Thompson, W.L.: Neural foundations of imagery. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2, 635–642 (2001)
Kosslyn, S.M., Thompson, W.L.: When is early visual cortex activated during visual mental imagery? Psychological Bulletin 129, 723–746 (2003)
Kosslyn, S.M., Thompson, W.L., Alpert, N.M.: Neural systems shared by visual imagery and visual perception: A positron emission tomography study. Neuroimage 6, 320–334 (1997)
Levie, W.H., Lentz, R.: Effects of text illustrations: A review of research. ECTJ 30, 195–232 (1982)
Levin, D.T., Simons, D.J., Angelone, B.L., Chabris, C.F.: Memory for centrally attended changing objects in an incidental real-world change detection paradigm. British Journal of Psychology 93, 289–302 (2002)
Mieses, J.: Psychology and the art of chess. In: Chess, pp. 154–156 (April 1940)
Perky, C.W.: An experimental study of imagination. American Journal of Psychology 21, 422–452 (1910)
Rakover, S.S.: Featural vs. configurational information in faces: A conceptual and empirical analysis. British Journal of Psychology 93, 1–30 (2002)
Rhodes, G., Brennan, S., Carey, S.: Identification and ratings of caricatures: Implications for mental representations of faces. Cognitive Psychology 19, 473–497 (1987)
Rhodes, G., McLean, I.G.: Distinctiveness and expertise effects with homogeneous stimuli: Towards a model of configural coding. Perception 19, 773–794 (1990)
Sageman, M.: Understanding terror networks. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (2004)
Scholl, B.J.: Objects and attention: The state of the art. Cognition 80, 1–46 (2001)
Segal, S.J., Fusella, V.: Influence of imaged pictures and sounds on detection of visual and auditory signals. Journal of Experimental Psychology 83, 458–464 (1970)
Shepard, R.N., Cooper, L.R.: Mental images and their transformations. MIT Press, Cambridge (1982)
Simons, D.J., Levin, D.T.: Failure to detect changes to people during a real-world interaction. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 5, 644–649 (1998)
Snyder, A.W., Thomas, M.: Autistic artists give clues to cognition. Perception 26, 93–96 (1997)
Steiner, G.: Fields of force: Fischer & Spassky at Reykjavik. Viking, New York (1974)
Taine, H.-A.: On intelligence. New York: Henry Holt, vol. I (1875); Translated from the French by T.D. Haye and revised with additions by the author. First published as De l’intelligence, Hachette, Paris (1870); Reprinted by University Publications of America, Washington (1875)
Tanaka, J.W., Farah, M.J.: Parts and wholes in face recognition. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology 46, 225–245 (1993)
Thompson, W.L., Kosslyn, S.M.: Neural systems activated during visual mental imagery: A review and meta-analyses. In: Toga, A.W., Mazziotta, J.C. (eds.) Brain mapping II: The systems, pp. 535–560. Academic Press, San Diego (2000)
Tufte, E.R.: The visual display of quantitative information. Graphics Press, Cheshire (1983)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Chabris, C.F., Kosslyn, S.M. (2005). Representational Correspondence as a Basic Principle of Diagram Design. In: Tergan, SO., Keller, T. (eds) Knowledge and Information Visualization. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3426. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11510154_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11510154_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-26921-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-31962-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)