Visualization Psychology

This book designates Visualization Psychology as an interdisciplinary subject. The book contains literature reviews and experimental works that exemplify a range of open questions at this critical intersection. It also includes discourses that envision how the subject may be developed in the coming years and decades.

The field of visualization is a rich playground for discovering new knowledge in both visualization and psychology. As visualization techniques augment human cognition, these techniques must be developed and improved by building on theoretical, empirical and methodological knowledge from psychology. At the same time, visualization processes surface numerous phenomena about interactions between the human mind and digital entities, such as data, visual imagery, algorithms, and computer-generated predictions and recommendations. Visualization psychology is a new type of science in the making.

Dr. Danielle Albers Szafir is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and ATLAS Institute, and a Fellow in the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado Boulder. Within the scope of this proposal, her research has explored how visualization design influences the patterns people perceive in data and how people use that data in decision making, offering actionable models of task performance and guidelines for creating visualizations for people with varying cognitive abilities. Results from this research have been integrated into leading tools such as D3 and Tableau and have received best paper awards at IEEE VIS and IS&T Color and Imaging. She was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2018 for Science. She received a B.S. in Computer Science at the University of Washington as a NASA Space Grant Scholar and a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Szafir is a cofounder of VisXVision, an organization aimed at bridging data visualization and perceptual psychology. In this role, she has guest edited a Journal of Vision Special Issue on vision and visualization and has helped organize VisXVision events at IEEE VIS (2017 panel, 2018 meet-up, and 2019 workshop) and at the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (2017 meet-up, 2018 symposium, and 2019 workshop).
Dr. Rita Borgo is Senior Lecturer in Data Visualization at the Informatics Department at King's College London (KCL), Head of the Human Centred Computing research group and Deputy Director of the Centre for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) - London. Her research focus is on Information Visualization and Visual Analytics with particular focus on the role of Human Factors in Visualization. Her research has followed an ambitious program of developing new data visualization techniques for interactive rendering and manipulation of large multi-dimensional and multivariate datasets. Novel in all aspects of the research is the aim at providing solutions that involve human in the loop of intelligent reasoning while reducing the burden of inspection of large complex data. Her research has been awarded supports from Royal Society, EPSRC and EU. She is currently championing the newly created Urban Living hub at KCL to increase impact of visualization within urban related challenges.
Dr. Darren J. Edwards is a cognitive, health, and experimental psychology researcher at Swansea University (Senior Lecturer). He obtained his PhD (2010) in categorization and information processing of supervised and spontaneous stimuli tasks which included visual context effects. His research has explored information theories of cognition, particularly in the area of information reduction or unitization for visual route learning, simplicity, and categorization tasks. Darren has worked with computer science academics for several years, applying theories of psychology and cognitionto areas such as data visualization on the perceptual orderability of visual channels and human-computer interaction. He has led a chapter as part of the lecture notes in computer science series, and most recently co-authored a chapter exploring the various 'ism' in psychology and visualisation. Darren is interested in how a new discipline of Visualization Psychology may be applicable to applied settings such as efficient visual displays of complex information in health care settings.
Dr. Lace Padilla is an assistant professor in the Cognitive and Information Sciences department at the University of California Merced. She was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship for work at Northwestern University. She received a PhD in Cognitive and Neural Sciences and an MFA in Design from the University of Utah. In 2018, she was awarded a Visionary Grant for research on Improving Trust in Uncertain Science funded by NASA. She has contributed significantly to research on decision making with visualizations, most recently with a review paper detailing a cognitive model for decision making with visualizations. Her empirical research utilizes displays of uncertainty, such as hurricane forecast maps, to understand how the brain represents, transforms, and reasons with visual information. She works collaboratively with visualization scientists, geographers, and anthropologists. In her spare time, she is a strong advocate for minoritized groups in STEM. The National Science Foundation appointed her as their 2017/2018 STEM ambassador for her outreach work, and she has received numerous awards for work with underserved populations.
Dr. Min Chen developed his academic career in Wales between 1984 and 2011. He is currently the professor of scientific visualization at Oxford University and a fellow of Pembroke College. His research interests include visualization, data science, computer graphics, and HCI. Hehas coauthored over 200 publications, including his recent contributions in areas such as theory of visualization, video visualization, visual analytics, and perception and cognition in visualization. He has worked on a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary research topics, ranging from the sciences to sports, and from digital humanities to cybersecurity. His services to the research community include papers co-chair of IEEE Visualization 2007 & 2008, Eurographics 2011, IEEE VAST 2014 & 2015; cochair of Volume Graphics 1999 & 2006, EuroVis 2014; TVCG AEIC; CGF EIC; and co-director of Wales Research Institute of Visual Computing. He is a fellow of BSC, EG, and LSW. Since 2005, Min Chen has collaborated with colleagues in VIS and psychology in a number of empirical research projects, some of which focused on evaluating different visualization techniques (e.g., video visualization), while others focused on exploring explanations of phenomena in visualization (e.g., embellishment, inaccuracy) and seeking evidence to support or falsify some theories of visualization (e.g., role of knowledge, cost-benefit ratio).
Dr. Brian Fisher is Professor of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University. He is a Fellow of the Psychonomics Society and serves on Canada's national Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Defence R&D Canada's Human Systems Performance Network of Expertise, and and member of EUREKA / European Commission Expert Panel in Entrepreneurship. He was General Chair for VIS 2019 and is International Liaison Chair for the Executive of the IEEE Computer Society Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee. Prior to SFU, he was Associate Director of the Media And Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre and adjunct professor in Psychology, Commerce, and Computer Science at the University of BC. His Integrated Science Lab blends the science of human reasoning & decision-making with the design of interactive information systems. This includes reasoning about ethics, policy, and governance, as well as reasoning for negotiation and collaboration. He has collaborated on design of graphical information systems for personalized health, emergency management, & injury prevention; aircraft safety; automotive CAD; telelearning; command, control, & interoperability; cybersecurity; and business analytics.