An experimental investigation of consistency of explanation and graph representation
Nana Kanzaki, Kazuhisa Miwa · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · 2012
Many previous studies of graph comprehension have confirmed that information gleaned from a graph is greatly influenced by its representation.When explaining data with a graph, writers/researchers must generate graphs whose representation is consistent with the explanation contents.In the current study, we defined those who engage in academic activities using graphs on a daily basis as expert graph users and investigated whether they and undergraduates (nonexperts) can adaptively generate a consistent graph with explanations from the viewpoint of the consistency of the contents and graph representation.Experiment 1 indicated that expert graph users adaptively generate a graph whose structure is consistent with the explanation contents.On the other hand, Experiment 2 suggests that undergraduates cannot do so.But in Experiment 3 undergraduates were supported by selecting graphs from provided candidates, but there was a limited concordance between the type of explanation and graph representation.