Visual Queries: The foundation of visual thinking Colin Ware Data Visualization Research Lab University of New Hampshire Designing with cyborgs in mind
Change Blindness Simons and Levin
Vogel Woodman and Luck Capacity of visual working memory 3 simple shapes
Sequential comparison task
Central Problem: How do we perceive the world in all its rich detail? Only detail in fovea Only a small amount of Information in visual working memory.
Solution “The world is its own memory” O’Regan Task-related active vision “What you see is what you need” Treish et al. (2003) Seeing is a process that helps us solve problems
Visualizations are much better databases than what we have in our heads
Architecture for visual thinking
Stage 2 Pattern perception Visual queries are executed by finding patterns in displays Attentional Demands Tune the pattern finding processes Top down meets bottom up
Visual search
Eye movements Two or three a second Preserves Context We seek patterns
ME Graph Constellation
Why visualize? Human Memory: 100 meg (Landauer) = 10 8 (not unique) World information: 1 exabyte/year = (unique) = 10 8 bytes new information per person per year Conclusion: we are cognitive cyborgs – our memories are not in our heads.
Why do we care about perception? It is about what makes information display effective. Can there be a science of visualization? Evaluation
Visualizations Maps Route Flow Thematic (geology, vegetation, etc) Multi-dimensional Discrete Multi-dimensional continuous Graphs Social Networks Flow Narrative – explaining data Animations, assembly diagrams Other thinking tools Calendars, Planners, search engines, News pages, Design tools
Understanding surface shape Victoria Interrante
Linked Windows Tide Aware Show GeoNav GeoZui4D
Flow visualization How do we optimally display vector fields?
Length ft16,000 Tons Beam – 82 ft30,000 HP Draft – 29 ftDiesel Elec AC/AC Fuel – 1,165,000 galTop Speed – 17kts Ice Breaking – kts
CAVE Head tracking – stereo Resolution problems Light scattering problems Vergence focus problem for near object Occlusion problems for near objects
Immersion VR HMD + head tracking Data glove
Capacity of visual working memory (Vogal, Woodman, Luck, 2001) Task – change detection Can see 3.3 objects Each object can be complex 1 second
Just enough, just in time
Dual Processing OBJECT FILES “Nexus” Dog
Attention and Patterns