Influence of cartographic visualization methods on cognitive processing: comparison of extrinsic and intrinsic visualization of avalanche hazard maps

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Authors

ŠAŠINKA Čeněk STACHOŇ Zdeněk KUBÍČEK Petr TAMM Sascha ŠTĚRBA Zbyněk ČENĚK Jiří

Year of publication 2014
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Perception
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
web https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/03010066140430S101
Field Psychology
Keywords cognitive processing; cartographic visualization; experiment
Description The aim of this research was to explore the influence of cartographic visualization on users' information processing. In our experiment, two alternative visualization methods were used (Kunz, 2011): an intrinsic method (bivariate colour scheme) and an extrinsic method (combination of colour and shape). The presented topic was the combination of avalanche hazard and uncertainty level. In the first case, both characteristics were visualized using a specific colour schema, where colour hue visualized the avalanche hazard and colour saturation depicted the uncertainty level. Secondly, the avalanche hazard was visualized by colour scale and the uncertainty level by graduated size circles. The first phase of the experiment was performed on the MuTeP testing platform (Šašinka & Stachoň, 2013) enabling collective data gathering. The second phase of the experiment used an eye-tracking tool to enable deeper understanding of the ongoing cognitive processes. The current contribution presents results of the subtest focused on intuitive understanding of the combined map legend and its influence on the achievements in the map field. Among other findings, it appears that the intrinsic method is more intuitive while with the extrinsic method, participants oscillated more often between the map field and the legend.
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