Lane Harrison, Drew Skau, Steven Franconeri, Aidong Lu, Remco Chang

Influencing Visual Judgment through Affective Priming

Make Decisions

Reason

Perceive

DAT

A

Make Decisions

Reason

Perceive

DAT

A

Visualization is also used in more serious contexts:

What do we know about affect?

Affect influences creativity.

Affect alters how we decide under uncertainty.

Affect modulates visual perception.

(Lewis et al., 2011)

(Fredrickson, et al., 2005)

(Vuilleumier et al., 2007)

How does Emot ion

impact graphical percept ion?

leverage wel l -s tud ied graphical percept ion task

adapt wel l - s tud ied emot ion-pr iming techniques

Exper iment combin ing emot ion and graphical percept ion.

Let`s start with what we know...

Position Angle

>

(Cleveland & McGill,1984)

Cleveland & McGill's Results

1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0

T1

T2

T3

T4

T5

Log Error

Crowdsourced Results

1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0

T1

T2

T3

T4

T5

T6

T7

T8

T9

Log Error

Useful for visualization design guidelines; heavily replicated.

(image: Heer and Bostock, 2009)

Cleveland & McGill's Results

1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0

T1

T2

T3

T4

T5

Log Error

Crowdsourced Results

1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0

T1

T2

T3

T4

T5

T6

T7

T8

T9

Log Error

(image: Heer and Bostock, 2009)

Validated AMT for graphical perception studies.

Heer & Bostock, 2009

A B

100

0

A

B

100

0

A B

100

0

A

B

A

B

tree

A

B

A

B

1000

A

B

V1

V2

V3

V4

V5

V6

V7

V8

bar chart(adjacent comparison)

bar chart(non-adjacent comparison)

horizontal bar chart(adjacent comparison)

stacked bar chart(adjacent comparison)

pie chart(ordered)

pie chart(unordered)

bubble chart

treemap

Replicate Cleveland & McGill! Again!

leverage wel l -s tud ied graphical percept ion task

adapt wel l - s tud ied emot ion-pr iming techniques

Exper iment combin ing emot ion and graphical percept ion.

How do we induce Emot ion?

Stories

Visual memory != verbal memory

Commonly used in web-based studies. (Goeritz., 2007)

(Shackman et al., 2006)

An excerpt...

No one could say for sure how long she would live, but continued hospital care was clearly pointless. Nor could she go home: she needed more attention than her family could provide...

The problem was, she had no place to go. There was a hospice facility near her house, but it would accept her only if she would die within six days...

- Excerpt from Looking for a Place to Die, Theresa Brown

How do we quant i fy Emot ion?

How do we induce Emot ion?

Stories

Visual memory != verbal memory

Commonly used in web-based studies. (Goeritz., 2007)

(Shackman et al., 2006)

(Lang et al., 2008, Lewis et al., 2011)

9-point Self-Assessment

Manikin (SAM)

Pilot 2: how effective is the priming?

Pilot 1: is the stimuli valid?

Full-study: all 8 chart types

Study components:

Pilot 1: Validate emotional content of stories

Stories selected from the New York Times

n = 40 on Mechanical Turk

SAM given only as post-test

Significant difference in emotion (valence).

Pilot 2: Effectiveness of the prime.

Purpose: does priming exposure guarantee a performance impact?

n = 234 on Mechanical Turk

SAM given as pre- and post- test

Absolute values of SAM are subjective, but change in SAM-

score indicates successful priming*

Full-study: 8 chart types

Purpose: test whether affect influences graphical perception.

Design: - n = 963 on Mechanical Turk- 1 random prime, 1 random chart- 5 perception tasks per participant- between subjects

Measures:- performance: log-error- subjective: 9-point SAM

Experiment procedure (Full study & Pilot 2)

Pre-ValencePre-Arousal

Post-ValencePost-ArousalAccuracyVeri!cation Question

Measure Emotion Random Priming

The patient was a fairly young woman and she'd had cancer for as long as her youngest child had been alive...

During this past year I've had three instances of car trouble: a blowout on a freeway, a bunch of blown fuses and an out-of-gas situation...

A B

100

0

A

B

100

0

A B

100

0

A

B

A

B

tree

A

B

A

B

1000

A

B

Random Chart

V1

V2

V3

V4

V5

V6

V7

V8

Tasks

Which of the two (A or B) is SMALLER?

What percentage is the SMALLER of the LARGER?

Measure Emotion

Full-study: 8 chart types

Cleanup: - 299 removed for junk answers- n = 664 total...- n = 207 successfully primed

Analysis: - log absolute errors - 95% confidence-intervals

Two cases: by priming group (664) and by SAM-change (207)...

Mean of all participants, regardless of final SAM (n = 664):

0 1 2 3 4

Positively Primed

Negatively Primed

Means of AllParticipants

No significant difference in error: t(662) = 1.8318; p = .067

All participants, regardless of final SAM (n = 664):

A B

100

0

A

B

100

0

A B

100

0

A

B

A

B

tree

A

B

A

B

1000

A

B

V1

V2

V3

V4

V5

V6

V7

V8

0 1 2 3 4

Positively Primed

Negatively Primed

Means of primed participants (n = 207):

0 1 2 3 4

Positively Primed

Negatively Primed

Means of PrimedParticipants

Significant difference in error: t(205) = 3.1560; p = .0018

Primed participants (n = 207):

A B

100

0

A

B

100

0

A B

100

0

A

B

A

B

tree

A

B

A

B

1000

A

B

V1

V2

V3

V4

V5

V6

V7

V8

0 1 2 3 4

Positively Primed

Negatively Primed

>

Primed participants, (change in SAM):

A B

100

0

A

B

100

0

A B

100

0

A

B

A

B

tree

A

B

A

B

1000

A

B

V1

V2

V3

V4

V5

V6

V7

V8

0 1 2 3 4

Positively Primed

Negatively Primed

Expert Discussion: Steven Franconeri, Northwestern

Positive moods can expand the scope of the perceptual spotlight of attention.

Encourage an observer to process a larger spatial area of the world in a single glance.

Negative or anxious moods can constrict this spatial area.

(Eriksen & St. James, 1986)

(Gasper & Clore, 2002; Rowe et al., 2007)

(Eysenck & Calvo, 1992)

To summarize...

Emot ion p lays an important ro le in v i sua l i zat ion.

Emot ion in f luences graphical percept ion accuracy.

A B

100

0

A

B

100

0

A B

100

0

A

B

A

B

tree

A

B

A

B

1000

A

B

V1

V2

V3

V4

V5

V6

V7

V8

0 1 2 3 4

Positively Primed

Negatively Primed

Ltharri1@uncc.edu @LaneHarrison codementum.org

Thanks!

co-authors: Drew Skau, Steven Franconeri, Aidong Lu, Remco Chang

sponsors: National Science Foundation, Visual.ly

colleagues: Evan Peck, Alvitta Ottley

Dan Afergan, Jordan Crouser