2 Perception and Gestalt

Data Visualisation and
Dashboarding
Week 2 –
Perception and
Gestalt
2
Perception and vision
From latin perceptio: a taking, receiving,

collecting, gathering.
“The ability to see, hear, or become aware of
something through the senses.”
Visual sense is most important sense
Visual perception makes only sense if we consider
eyes and brain
We can only make sense of sensory information
using experience/memory/learned behaviour
Visualisation from Stephen Few’s ‘Information

Dashboard Design’
The most important sense: Sight
The eye has four main activities:

1. Lens focuses light onto the retina
2. Pupils control the amount of light received
3. Photoreceptors convert light into electrical
impulses
4. Electrical signals are passed to the optic
nerve and then processed by the brain
‘The functional art’ Alberto Cairo 2013

What do we actually see?
Best visual acuity in fovea.
Narrow cone of vision.
Brain is using high-speed scanning process that is both

voluntary and involuntary to best use the narrow fovea and
surrounding parafovealhigh-quality vision. For example, as you
are reading this text, your eye uses the foveal range to read
two or three words you are reading now. The parafovealrange
is making your brain aware of the 10-15 words surrounding
this.
Need to consider visual scanning speed for data visualisations Human field of view.
Visual processing
Brain needs to make sense of signals passed from
eye.
First part of process is iconic memory.
E.g. when looking at a face, brain
recognises it is a face.
Visual working memory
What is noticeable about the face?
Passed to long-term memory
Hey, I know that face
Visual perception can be fooled.
Face in the moon ‘The functional art’ Alberto Cairo 2013
Face or moon?
Chihuahua or muffin?
A little experiment…
Next slide shows chart showing gun deaths in Florida over a period of time
Florida enacted the “Stand your Ground” law in 2005
Did gun deaths increase or decrease after 2005?

Increase or
decrease?
Be mindful of foreground/background!
Graphic on the left depicts gun deaths in Florida

Y-axis is inverted…
Graphic might be perceived as an area chart with the
white area
Did gun deaths go up or down after the “Stand Your
Ground law”?
The Necker cube
Ambiguous Figure
Look at the cube and think about where the front
face of the cube is. Is it above or below the back
face?
Duck or Rabbit?
Rubin’s Vase
Constructive perception
A: Kanizsa triangle C: Three-dimensional ball

B: S-shape D: Nessie
Constructive perception
A: Kanizsa triangle
B: S-shape
C: Three-dimensional ball
D: Nessie
Adelson’s Checker-
Shadow illusion
Are A and B different shades?

18
The mind seeks patterns…
When data is presented in certain ways, the patterns can be readily

perceived. If we can understand how perception works, our
knowledge can be translated into rules for displaying information”
(Colin Ware, 2013)
Pre-attentive
attributes
How many times does the number

seven appear?
Pre-attentive
attributes
Easier now?
Common pre-attentive attributes
Example: Colours and length
From Preattentive Attributes in Visualization - An Example (daydreamingnumbers.com)

Another example
From Why Visual Analytics? - Tableau

Another example

Another example

Gestalt Principles
Gestalt
“an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.”
Gestalt psychology
School of psychology that emerged in the early twentieth century in Austria and Germany as a theory
of perception
The Gestalt School considered the nature of perception as organised wholes
The suggestion is that we tend to perceive objects as part of a greater whole and as elements of
more complex systems.
We can work with the idea that the Whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
To support this a number of principles/laws were established.

Common Gestalt Principles
Principle of proximity
We perceive data elements near to

each other as being a related group
Principle of similarity
When items are alike in their

properties, we group them together.
Similarity could be based on size,

shape, colour, etc.
Principle of enclosure
Items surrounded by something such

as a line or object, the elements will
be perceived as being a group
Principle of connection
Items connected by lines are being

related to each other
Principle of continuity
When looking at points, we will

perceive them as smooth curves or
continuous lines, rather than sharp,
broken lines
Principle of closure
When we see gaps in lines or

formations, we will organise them
into complete shapes rather than
seeing the parts as separate
components
Principle of figure-ground
We see object that appear to be in

the foreground as being separate
from those in the background
Principle of common fate
If objects move together in the same

direction and speed, they are
perceived as being a group
Mainly applicable to animated

graphics
More examples
IBM: Proximity, Coca Cola: Continuity, WWF Panda: Closure, Apple: Figure-ground,
Walking dog: Common Fate (but also proximity, closure & continuity)
Chart of the week
Line chart
Visualise quantitative values over

equally spaced time periods
Which Gestalt principles can we

observe here?
When not to use a line chart…
Don’t use a line chart if the data

contains gaps are time periods
are not equally spaced
Use scatter chart instead!

To use two axes or not to use two axes?
Read more here: Why not to use two axes, and what to use instead (datawrapper.de)
Where is the baseline?
Even the same zero baseline can mislead
Humans have a tendency to set things in relation if

they’re close-by
We automatically compare lines and points to
each other
Dual-axis line charts tend to be hard to read, use

with caution!
Alternatives
Side-by-side charts Indexed charts

Prioritise and label
Only show more important data series

Add annotations to give context
This can be a great alternative for

dual-axis charts that present absolute
and relative numbers of the same
measure
Connected Scatterplots
Keep one variable on the y-axis

Place second variable on x-axis
(instead of time)
Time moves along line
Very unintuitive, but may reveal
interesting insights

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Data Visualisation and

From latin perceptio: a taking, receiving,

Visualisation from Stephen Few’s ‘Information

The eye has four main activities:

‘The functional art’ Alberto Cairo 2013

Best visual acuity in fovea.

Narrow cone of vision.

Brain is using high-speed scanning process that is both

Did gun deaths increase or decrease after 2005?

Graphic on the left depicts gun deaths in Florida

A: Kanizsa triangle C: Three-dimensional ball

Are A and B different shades?

When data is presented in certain ways, the patterns can be readily

How many times does the number

From Preattentive Attributes in Visualization - An Example (daydreamingnumbers.com)

From Why Visual Analytics? - Tableau

From Why Visual Analytics? - Tableau

From Why Visual Analytics? - Tableau

To support this a number of principles/laws were established.

We perceive data elements near to

When items are alike in their

Similarity could be based on size,

Items surrounded by something such

Items connected by lines are being

When looking at points, we will

When we see gaps in lines or

We see object that appear to be in

If objects move together in the same

Mainly applicable to animated

Visualise quantitative values over

Which Gestalt principles can we

Don’t use a line chart if the data

Use scatter chart instead!

Humans have a tendency to set things in relation if

Dual-axis line charts tend to be hard to read, use

Side-by-side charts Indexed charts

Only show more important data series

This can be a great alternative for

Keep one variable on the y-axis

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