"Bars are naturally interpreted as containers, as enclosing one set of things and separating that set from other sets. Lines, on the other hand, are naturally interpreted as connectors, as paths interrelating different points. Thus, in the context of representing data, a more natural way to represent discrete quantities is by bars and a more natural way to represent trends is by lines." (Barbara Tversky, "What does drawing reveal about thinking?", 1999)
"Drawings, then, are representations of reality, not presentations of reality. Drawings can omit things that are actually there, they can distort things that are there, they can add things that are not there. They need not have a consistent point of view or a point of view at all. As such, drawings are of even greater interest to art critics, designers, and psychologists alike. They can provide insights into conceptulizations not just imaginings." (Barbara Tversky, "What does drawing reveal about thinking?", 1999)
"Attention is selective, ignoring much incoming information. The perceptual systems level and sharpen the information that does come in; for example, the visual system searches for the boundaries that define figures by sharpening edges and corners, by filing in gaps, by normalizing shapes. Cognition filters, abstracts, and categorizes, continuing this process, and symbol systems carry these processes further." (Barbara Tversky, "Visualizing thought", Topics in Cognitive Science 3(3), 2010)
"Diagrams and other depictions are expressions and
communications of thought, a class that includes gesture, action, and language.
In common with gesture and action, diagrams use place and form in space to
convey meanings, concrete and abstract, quite directly."
"Because [images] persist, they can be subjected to myriad perceptual processes: Compare, contrast, assess similarity, distance, direction, shape, and size, reverse figure and ground, rotate, group and regroup; that is, they can be mentally assessed and rearranged in multiple ways that contribute to understanding, inference, and insight." (Barbara Tversky, "Visualizing thought", Topics in Cognitive Science 3(3), 2010)
"[...] maps, like many other kinds of visualizations, distort the 'truth' to tell a larger truth. The processes that abstract, schematize,
supplement, and distort the world outside onto the world of a page, filtering,
leveling, sharpening, categorizing, and otherwise transforming, are the same
processes the nervous system and the brain apply to make sense of the barrage
of stimuli the world provides."
"When diagrams are cluttered with information, finding and integrating the relevant information takes working memory capacity. Schematization, that is, removing irrelevant details, exaggerating, perhaps distorting, relevant ones, even adding relevant but invisible information, can facilitate information processing in a variety of ways." (Barbara Tversky, "Visualizing thought", Topics in Cognitive Science 3(3), 2010)
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