That Color Means What? Understanding People's Expectations About the Meanings of Visual Features To Facilitate Visual Communication 

Speaker: Karen B. Schloss
University of Wisconsin-Madison  

March 23, 2022
11:15 AM - 1:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time 

Abstract
Visual communication through information visualizations is fundamental to how humans share information, from weather patterns, to disease prevalence, to their latest scientific discoveries. When people attempt to interpret information visualizations, such as graphs, maps, diagrams, and signs, they are faced with the task of mapping perceptual features onto meanings. Sometimes, the designs of visualizations include legends, labels, or accompanying verbal descriptions to help determine which visual feature means what. But, the problem is, people have expectations about how visual features will map to concepts, and find it more difficult to interpret visualizations that violate those expectations. In this talk, I will discuss factors that determine those expectations, and how people use a process called assignment inference to infer mappings between colors and concepts. Our studies have shown that assignment inference can lead to results that are surprising, but well-explained by our models. For example, cases arise in which participants infer that concepts map to weakly associated colors when there are more strongly associated options. And, participants can systematically infer mappings between colors and concepts in data visualizations when some concepts represented in the visualizations have no strongly associated colors. This work has deepened our understanding of people’s expectations about the meanings of visual features, which can be used to make visual communication more effective and efficient. 

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