Taking advantage of Preattentive Processing in your visual aids

The article Data Presentation: Tapping the power of visual perception, by Stephen Few, deals with the question “why do some people respond well to some forms of data representation and not others” This is definitely worth reading for anyone involved in representing data in a visual medium. The article discusses such topics as the role and limitations of memory in our interpretation of charts and data and the fundamental attributes of sight and how these are related to attentive and pre-attentive processing.

Attentive and pre-attentive processing were new terms for me, but they put a name to some ideas that I have had in the past and which are also closely related to concepts of ‘layered meaning.’

The authors illustrate the difference between attentive and preattentive processing through the use of two illustrations.

figure 1

figure 2

In Figure 2, discerning how many times the number ‘5’ appears is relatively easy because it has been distinguished by colour – a preattentive attribute that differentiates it from other numbers. In contrast, discerning the frequency in Example 1 is much more difficult because the brain must work harder to discern the individual shapes (the difference between a ‘3’ and a ‘5’, for example).

For presenters and infographic designers, this is an important concept to keep in mind, and further underlines the importance of using preattentive attributes (color, orientation, size, line width, etc.) to draw attention to the key ideas and data points (see discussion on tables). 

Sources:

• The full text of the article is here and here in pdf.
• A detailed description of preattentive visual attributes is at the bottom of the second page.

 

Presenting Information: Displaying a table

When displaying a data table, particularly one which is information rich, a dark background reduces glare and makes it easier for the viewer to read the data. Compare the two examples below:

Below are some simple rules for displaying a table in PowerPoint

• Remove excess lines
• Highlight key data either in colour or with a faded background. This is important to allow the viewer to quickly discern the relevant and important data points.
• Emphasize relationships
• Do not trust MS Excel defaults for any graphic or table
• Use a sans serif font (such as Helvetica or Trebuchet)
• Fade your lines to a lighter colour than the text (eg. White text and grey lines). Doing so makes the table easier to read

Compare this before and example that illustrates some of these basic changes:

Example B is a much more readable table.  Additionally, the viewer of the slide can easily recognize what will be discussed. *Granted, there are some definitions and a title missing, but the main point, that a few visual changes can greatly improve the readability, should be clear.

Edward Tufte discusses these ideas in much greater depth in his book The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

Presenting Data: Tabular and Graphic Display of Social Indicators by Gary Klass, Illinois State University, has an excellent description of what makes a good table and how to interpret data. There discussions on how ambiguous data is represented and the distortion it causes is especially interesting.

Creating a Research Space (the CARS Model)

I am teaching this workshop on writing thesis/dissertation abstracts. The audience is primarily Seoul National University students in the natural sciences and engineering fields.

In preparing for this workshop, I noticed that there was little out there that really described how to write this particular type of abstract, and even less advice and tips for the ESL writer. I did however come across the CARS model (Create A Research Space) developed by Swales and Feak, that is not only very useful to ESL writers but I think valuable to all academic writers in general.

Basically the CARS model outlines three steps for creating a research space; all closely related to the concept of niche. In many instances, writers are taught to move from a general to specific focus in their writing. However, conceptualizing the writing in this manner could be too simplistic – it seems to imply a single step from a general description to a specific description without really specifying how or why that move should be made, or what the real purpose behind making such a move is. This is where the CARS model becomes really valuable. It consists of three main steps and a series of sub-steps that more clearly define what the individual steps are that the writer needs to take:

• Move 1: Establishing a research territory
  • step 1: claiming centrality, and/or
  • step 2: placing your research within the filed, and/or
  • step 3: reviewing items of previous research
• Move 2: Establishing a niche
  • step 1a: Counter-claiming, or
  • step 1b: Indicating a gap in current research, or
  • step 1c: Question raising, or
  • step 1d: Continuing a tradition
• Move 3: Occupying the niche
  • step 1a: Outlining purposes, or
  • step 1b: Announcing present research
  • step 2: Announcing principle findings
  • step 3: Indicating research article structure

The CARS model is from English in Today’s Research World: a writing guide (Swales and Fea, 2000). This book is published by the University of Michigan Press: Michigan Series in English for Academic and Professional Purposes. This series has a lot of valuable books that are of use for the academic writer – definitely worth a look.

Thesis and Dissertation Abstract Writing Workshop links

Much of what is available on the internet regarding thesis abstracts is quite sparse and not really focused towards the ESL student. However, there are a few links that are useful:

• University of Toronto Writing Center: a good description of writing an abstract for the beginner.
• The Efficient Academic: this blog has a great collection of resources, specifically geared towards the science researcher. While there is nothing specifically related to writing a thesis/dissertation abstract, there is a wide variety of links to articles about academic writing – definitely worth a look
• Scientific Writing: A very detailed collection of links to several aspects of scientific writing, including thesis and dissertation writing.

Thesis and Dissertation Abstract Writing Workshop for Natural Science and Engineering students (05.09)

Workshop Date: May 9th, from 3:00pm to 6:00pm

Location: rm 422, 4th floor of the Language Education Institute (LEI, bldg 137), Seoul National University

Registration: You must register for this workshop. This can be done through the LEI website.

This workshop will examine the structure of the thesis/dissertation abstract. This particular workshop will focus exclusively on writing thesis/dissertation abstracts in the natural sciences and engineering fields.

Some of the specific skills to be covered include:

• Strong and Weak abstracts: What features make make some abstracts better than others
• Strategies for writing abstracts: including key words, interestingness and entering into abstract databases
• Structure of abstracts (Based on the CARS model, by Swales and Feake): We will look at how an abstract can be fitted to this model, and some of the related strategies that a writer needs to use in order to draw attention to their work
• Academic Language skills: We will look at some basic academic writing skills that ESL writers may need to consider when writing a dissertation abstract.

I look forward to seeing some of you there at the workshop.