Representing category and continuum: Visualizing thought

Barbara Tversky, James E. Corter, Lixiu Yu, David L. Mason, Jeffrey V. Nickerson

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

15 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abstract thought has roots in the spatial world. Abstractions are expressed in the ways things are arranged in the world as well as the ways people talk and gesture. Mappings to the page should be better when they are congruent, that is, when the abstract concept matches the spatial one. Congruent mappings can be revealed in people's performance and preferences. Congruence is supported here for visual representations of continuum and category. Congruently mapping a continuous concept, frequency, to a continuous visual variable and mapping a categorical concept, class inclusion, to a categorical visual variable were preferred and led to better performance than the reverse mappings.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)23-34
Number of pages12
JournalLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume7352 LNAI
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Event7th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams, Diagrams 2012 - Canterbury, United Kingdom
Duration: 2 Jul 20126 Jul 2012

Keywords

  • design
  • diagrams
  • information systems
  • networks
  • reasoning
  • spatial metaphors

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