[R] perception of graphical data

[Henric Nilsson (Public)]

Den 2007-08-25 00:42, hadley wickham skrev:
> Hi Richard,
> 
>> I apologize that this is off-topic.  I am seeking information on
>> perception of graphical data, in an effort to improve the plots I
>> produce.  Would anyone point me to literature reviews in this area?  (Or
>> keywords to try on google?)  Is this located somewhere near cognitive
>> science, psychology, human factors research?
> 
> Probably the best place to start on these general issues, are a couple
> of papers by Cleveland:
> 
> @article{cleveland:1987,
>         Author = {Cleveland, William and McGill, Robert},
>         Journal = {Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A
> (General)},
>         Number = {3},
>         Pages = {192-229},
>         Title = {Graphical Perception: The Visual Decoding of Quantitative
> Information on Graphical Displays of Data},
>         Volume = {150},
>         Year = {1987}}
> 
> @article{cleveland:1984,
>         Author = {Cleveland, William S. and McGill, M. E.},
>         Journal = {Journal of the American Statistical Association},
>         Number = 387,
>         Pages = {531-554},
>         Title = {Graphical Perception: Theory, Experimentation and
> Application to the Development of Graphical Methods.},
>         Volume = 79,
>         Year = 1984}
> 
> For colour in particular, I like Ross Ihaka's introduction to the subject:
> 
> 
> @inproceedings{ihaka:2003,
>         Author = {Ihaka, Ross},
>         Booktitle = {Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on
> Distributed Statistical Computing (DSC 2003)},
>         Title = {Colour for Presentation Graphics},
>         Year = {2003}}
> 
> 
> and also see colorbrewer.org

In addition, I've found the following one really useful

@TECHREPORT{Zeileis+Hornik:2006,
   author = {Achim Zeileis and Kurt Hornik},
   title = {Choosing Color Palettes for Statistical Graphics},
   institution = {Department of Statistics and Mathematics,
                  Wirtschaftsuniversit\"at Wien,
		 Research Report Series},
   year = {2006},
   type = {Report},
   number = {41},
   month = {October},
   url = 
{http://epub.wu-wien.ac.at/dyn/openURL?id=oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:epub-wu-01_abd}
}


HTH,
Henric



> 
>> Scatter plots of microarray data often attempt to represent thousands or
>> tens of thousands of points, but all I read from them are density and
>> distribution --- the gene names cannot be shown.  At what point, would a
>> sunflowerplot-like display or a smooth gradient be better?  When two
>> data points drawn as 50% gray disks are small and tangent, are they
>> perceptually equivalent to a single, 100% black disk?  Or a 50% gray
>> disk with twice the area?  What problems are known about plotting with
>> disks --- do viewers use the area or the diameter (or neither) to gauge
>> weight?
> 
> I think many of these are still research topics.  Two (of many) places
> to start are:
> 
> 
> @article{huang:1997,
>         Author = {Huang, Chisheng and McDonald, John Alan and Stuetzle, Werner},
>         Journal = {Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics},
>         Pages = {383--396},
>         Title = {Variable resolution bivariate plots},
>         Volume = {6},
>         Year = {1997}}
> 
> @article{carr:1987,
>         Author = {Carr, D. B. and Littlefield, R. J. and Nicholson, W. L. and
> Littlefield, J. S.},
>         Journal = {Journal of the American Statistical Association},
>         Number = {398},
>         Pages = {424-436},
>         Title = {Scatterplot Matrix Techniques for Large N},
>         Volume = {82},
>         Year = {1987}}
> 
> 
> 
>> As you can tell, I'm a non-expert, mixing issues of data interpretation,
>> visual perception, graphic representation.  Previously, I didn't have
>> the flexibility of R's graphics, so I didn't need to think so much.
>> I've read some of Edward S. Tufte's books, but found them more
>> qualitative than quantitative.
> 
> More quantitative approaches are Cleveland's, Bertin's and Wilkinson's:
> 
> 
> @book{cleveland:1993,
>         Author = {Cleveland, William},
>         Publisher = {Hobart Press},
>         Title = {Visualizing data},
>         Year = {1993}}
> 
> @book{cleveland:1994,
>         Author = {Cleveland, William},
>         Publisher = {Hobart Press},
>         Title = {The Elements of Graphing Data},
>         Year = {1994}}
> 
> @book{chambers:1983,
>         Author = {Chambers, John and Cleveland, William and Kleiner, Beat and
> Tukey, Paul},
>         Publisher = {Wadsworth},
>         Title = {Graphical methods for data analysis},
>         Year = {1983}}
> 
> 
> @book{bertin:1983,
>         Address = {Madison, WI},
>         Author = {Bertin, Jacques},
>         Publisher = {University of Wisconsin Press},
>         Title = {Semiology of Graphics},
>         Year = {1983}}
> 
> 
> @book{wilkinson:2006,
>         Author = {Wilkinson, Leland},
>         Publisher = {Springer},
>         Series = {Statistics and Computing},
>         Title = {The Grammar of Graphics},
>         Year = {2005}}
> 
> Hope this gets you started!
> 
> Hadley
> 
>