Dumps and Landfill
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DATA VISUALIZATION Erich C. Fisher1 and Curtis W. Marean2,3 1 School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA 2 Institute of Human Origins, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA 3 Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Synonyms Graphic design; Information graphics (infographics) Definition Data visualization. Pictorial representations that are derived from qualitative or quantitative raw data to infer process or patterns in phenomena. Data visualization is closely linked to informatics, the collection, indexing, storage, retrieval, analysis, synthesis, and dissemination of data (He, 2003) and graphic design, which is the study of the technology, implementation, and social impact on human visual communication (Frascara, 1988). Introduction Multimedia learning theory posits that the human brain creates dynamic associations between words, pictures, and auditory information to maximize learning capability (Mayer, 2001). Sociological studies of scientific practices have also showed that visualizations are a key part of the discovery process and the transmission of information Electronic Supplementary Material The online version of this chapter (doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-4409-0_56) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
among individuals (Lynch and Woolgar, 1990; Dibiase et al., 1992; Suárez, 2010; Allamel-Raffin, 2011; Gelfert, 2011). While words alone are an effective medium to transmit complex information, they may be less effective than when they are paired with pictures. Thus, one needs only to look at the myriad of papers, presentations, or field books to see that visualization is innate to scientific practice regardless of time period, theme, scale, or methods. Visualizations are versatile tools because they work as a heuristic device capable of distilling real-world experiences and phenomena into simplified abstractions that can convey specific ideas, meanings, or knowledge (Gooding, 2008; Wang and Shen, 2011). The abstraction of visual representations is graded. At one end of the spectrum are images, like photographs, which mimic the real world and whose internal elements have no inherent meaning. On the other end of the spectrum are graphics, like maps, which are abstracted representations of the real world that are used to convey specific meaning through their symbolic representations. The level of abstraction and inherent meaning between images and graphics thus creates a fundamental difference in how these visualizations are used (MacEachren, 1994): images lead one to question the picture itself, whereas graphics lead one to question the relationship between what is being symbolized within the picture. These concepts are represented in Figure 1, which shows how a photographic image can be progressively simplified and abstracted to convey only specific information. By abstracting the image, it is much easier to anal
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