Introduction We are testing how people view graphs. First, here is a bit of background information about your graph.

Introduction   In the months before the elections of 2014 in a small European country, a polling organization asked citizens about their voting intentions on a daily basis. The major parties were: Labour Conservatives Alliance United The parties held several debates within this time, and the performance of the candidates had large impacts on each party’s popularity.

The major news story from this election was the fighting between the candidates from the leading parties: the Labour and the Conservatives. Labour Conservatives Alliance United Costa Greco Voters are most interested in news about these two parties, because there was little chance that either of the other parties would generate enough support to win.

Labour Conservatives Alliance United Costa Greco Costa, the Labour candidate, initially had a healthy lead in the polls, but during an initial debate, Costa made a major error – he blatantly insulted Greco’s spouse, suggesting that she wasn’t very bright.

Labour Conservatives Alliance United Costa Greco It backfired. By the next morning, Greco was running attack ads on television, simply replaying the insult for voters, and asking whether the people wanted such a cruel man as their president. Costa turned many voters over to Greco.

Labour Conservatives Alliance United Costa Greco In a later debate, their fortunes again reversed. During a heated moment on controversial limitations on freedom of the country’s press, Costa challenged Greco on his inconsistent policies: he seemed to like press restrictions for organizations that disagreed with his beliefs.

Labour Conservatives Alliance United Costa Greco Greco seemed unprepared for this attack, and looked lost. He tried to switch the topic to Costa’s insult toward his wife, and it backfired massively, giving him the appearance of avoiding real issues. Costa took a strong lead again.

Labour Conservatives Alliance United Costa Greco So to summarize, Costa was initially strongly ahead, until his accidental insult led to a loss of voters. But at a later debate, Costa took his strong lead back when Greco tried to raise the stale story once again.

Costa Labour Greco Conservatives Alliance United This graph shows polling data from the election, so that you can see the impact of these debate events for yourself. You can see in the circle where Costa’s party was initially strongly ahead, until his accidental insult on April 21 decreased his position drastically, turning many voters over to Greco.

Costa Labour Greco Conservatives Alliance United But on May 20, you can see where Greco’s attempt to bring up the issue again backfired, and put Costa back in the lead.

We’d like to see how well crowdsourcing can be used to predict what features, changes, or patterns people will see in these kinds of graphs. We plan to show the same graph that you saw to 100 people, along with the short description below. We won’t have time to show them the longer description that you will read – we just want you to have a sense of where the data come from.

Here is what they will see:

In the months before the elections of 2014 in a small European country, a polling organization asked citizens about their voting intentions on a daily basis. The graph below reflects each party’s popularity over a three-month period. Labour Conservatives United Alliance

We’ll ask them to notice which features, changes, or patterns are most salient to them in the graph.

If you asked someone to describe the most salient features, changes, or patterns in these data, what would they say? In what priority order? Press “Next” when you are ready to write down your predictions. Labour Conservatives Alliance United

What is the 1st thing you predict that person will notice? Labour Conservatives Alliance United

What is the 2nd thing you predict that person will notice? Labour Conservatives Alliance United

What is the 3rd thing you predict that person will notice? Labour Conservatives Alliance United

What is the 4th thing you predict that person will notice? Labour Conservatives Alliance United

What is the 5th thing you predict that person will notice? Labour Conservatives United Alliance

Please take one minute to type your five statements in the box below. Labour Conservatives United Alliance

Do not change your answers from what you wrote and typed! Please rank the following statements (A, B, C, D, and E) to match your written ranking, as best as you can, by dragging the statements in the right order. Do not change your answers from what you wrote and typed! • If what you wrote down did not match any of the following statement, please write down N/A Labour Conservatives United Alliance [A] Labour lost ground to the Conservatives around April 21 [B] Labour regained the strong lead from Conservatives around May 20 [C] Alliance dropped below United around May 25 [E] Labour and Alliance seem to be vertical mirror-images of each other. [D] United swapped position with Alliance, around June 17