TY - JOUR
T1 - Visual routines for extracting magnitude relations
AU - Michal, Audrey L.
AU - Uttal, David
AU - Shah, Priti
AU - Franconeri, Steven L.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant IES-R205A120531 to Northwestern University. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education. The authors thank Karly Raber, Sherry Vernon, and Ernesto Melchor for data collection assistance and Lei Yuan and Linsey Smith for helpful comments.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, Psychonomic Society, Inc.
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - Linking relations described in text with relations in visualizations is often difficult. We used eye tracking to measure the optimal way to extract such relations in graphs, college students, and young children (6- and 8-year-olds). Participants compared relational statements (“Are there more blueberries than oranges?”) with simple graphs, and two systematic patterns emerged: eye movements that followed the verbal order of the question (inspecting the “blueberry” value first) versus those that followed a left-first bias (regardless of the left value’s identity). Question-order patterns led substantially to faster responses and increased in prevalence with age, whereas the left-first pattern led to far slower responses and was the dominant strategy for younger children. We argue that the optimal way to verify a verbally expressed relation’s consistency with visualization is for the eyes to mimic the verbal ordering but that this strategy requires executive control and coordination with language.
AB - Linking relations described in text with relations in visualizations is often difficult. We used eye tracking to measure the optimal way to extract such relations in graphs, college students, and young children (6- and 8-year-olds). Participants compared relational statements (“Are there more blueberries than oranges?”) with simple graphs, and two systematic patterns emerged: eye movements that followed the verbal order of the question (inspecting the “blueberry” value first) versus those that followed a left-first bias (regardless of the left value’s identity). Question-order patterns led substantially to faster responses and increased in prevalence with age, whereas the left-first pattern led to far slower responses and was the dominant strategy for younger children. We argue that the optimal way to verify a verbally expressed relation’s consistency with visualization is for the eyes to mimic the verbal ordering but that this strategy requires executive control and coordination with language.
KW - Eye movements and visual attention
KW - Relations
KW - Visualizations
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84968548486&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3758/s13423-016-1047-0
DO - 10.3758/s13423-016-1047-0
M3 - Other Journal Article
C2 - 27177650
AN - SCOPUS:84968548486
SN - 1069-9384
VL - 23
SP - 1802
EP - 1809
JO - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
JF - Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
IS - 6
ER -