Graphical Perception: Theory, Experimentation, and Application to the Development of Graphical Methods
Abstract
The subject of graphical methods for data analysis and for data presentation needs a scientific foundation. In this article we take a few steps in the direction of establishing such a foundation. Our approach is based on graphical perception—the visual decoding of information encoded on graphs—and it includes both theory and experimentation to test the theory. The theory deals with a small but important piece of the whole process of graphical perception. The first part is an identification of a set of elementary perceptual tasks that are carried out when people extract quantitative information from graphs. The second part is an ordering of the tasks on the basis of how accurately people perform them. Elements of the theory are tested by experimentation in which subjects record their judgments of the quantitative information on graphs. The experiments validate these elements but also suggest that the set of elementary tasks should be expanded. The theory provides a guideline for graph construction: Graphs should employ elementary tasks as high in the ordering as possible. This principle is applied to a variety of graphs, including bar charts, divided bar charts, pie charts, and statistical maps with shading. The conclusion is that radical surgery on these popular graphs is needed, and as replacements we offer alternative graphical forms—dot charts, dot charts with grouping, and framed-rectangle charts.
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- Authors
- Cleveland, W. S., & McGill, R.
- Affiliations
- AT&T (United States) (US)
- Venue
- Journal of the American Statistical Association
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 1984-09
- Volume
- 79
- Issue
- 387
- Pages
- 531-554
- ISSN
- 0162-1459 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-274X
- OpenAlex
- W1971781829
- Cited by
- 1,796
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 86 · 2025: 141 · 2024: 84 · 2023: 75 · 2022: 69 · 2021: 119 · 2020: 94 · 2019: 81 · 2018: 116 · 2017: 73 · 2016: 71 · 2015: 82 · 2014: 73 · 2013: 60 · 2012: 70
- FWCI
- 12.93
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of the American Statistical Association (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Data Visualization and Analytics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Visual and Cognitive Learning Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- graphical perception, task sequencing, graph construction, bar charts, pie charts, statistical maps, shading, data visualization, data presentation
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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