Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Color Vision01:24

Color Vision

Color perception begins in the retina, the light-sensitive layer at the back of the eye. Two main theories explain how colors are seen: the trichromatic theory and the opponent-process theory. The trichromatic theory, proposed by Thomas Young in 1802 and extended by Hermann von Helmholtz in 1852, suggests that color vision is based on three types of cone receptors in the retina. These cones are sensitive to different but overlapping ranges of wavelengths corresponding to red, blue, and green.
Gestalt Principles of Perception01:21

Gestalt Principles of Perception

Gestalt principles provide a framework for understanding how humans perceive objects as unified wholes within their context. These principles are essential in explaining the cognitive processes that make sense of complex visual stimuli by organizing them into coherent groups. One fundamental principle is proximity, which posits that objects located close to each other are perceived as a collective group. For instance, when dots are positioned near one another, the visual system interprets them...
Perceptual Constancy01:12

Perceptual Constancy

Perceptual constancy is the ability to recognize that objects remain consistent and unchanged even when their appearance varies due to changes in sensory input. There are four main types of perceptual constancy: size constancy, shape constancy, color constancy, and brightness constancy.
Size constancy is the recognition that an object remains the same size, even when its image on the retina changes. For instance, a bus is perceived to be large enough to carry people, even if it looks tiny from...
Introduction to Scalers01:21

Introduction to Scalers

Many familiar physical quantities can be specified completely by giving a single number and the appropriate unit. For example, "a class period lasts 50 min," or "the gas tank in my car holds 65 L," or "the distance between the two posts is 100 m." A physical quantity that can be specified completely in this manner is called a scalar quantity. The word "scalar" is a synonym for "number." Time, mass, distance, length, volume, temperature, and energy are some examples of scalar quantities.
Scalar...
Perception01:28

Perception

Perception is a fundamental psychological process that enables individuals to organize, interpret, and consciously experience sensory information. This process is crucial for understanding and interacting with the world around us. It includes both bottom-up and top-down processing, each playing a distinct role in how we perceive our environment.
Bottom-up processing begins at the sensory level, where receptors detect external environmental stimuli. These could include the tactile sensation of...
Factors Affecting Perception01:25

Factors Affecting Perception

Perception is influenced by perceptual set, context, motivation, and emotion. Perceptual set, or perceptual expectancy, refers to the tendency to perceive things in a particular way, influenced by previous experiences and expectations. This phenomenon affects the interpretation of stimuli, creating a set of mental tendencies and assumptions that impact sensory perceptions of sound, taste, touch, and sight.
An illustrative example of a perceptual set is the scenario where an airline pilot told...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Reframing ED Boarding Through a Human Factors Sociotechnical Systems Lens.

Journal of patient safety·2026
Same author

Association of patient complexity with information processing and usability of electronic health records among ICU providers: a multicenter study.

Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA·2026
Same author

The role of goals, actions, and outcomes in the sense of agency.

Acta psychologica·2026
Same author

Enhancing Patient Safety in Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Health Care: The Role of Human Factors.

Journal of patient safety·2025
Same author

Health Care Staff-Reported Workplace Violence in Patient Safety Event Reports.

JAMA network open·2025
Same author

Evaluating the Quality and Safety of Ambient Digital Scribe Platforms Using Simulated Ambulatory Encounters.

Mayo Clinic proceedings. Digital health·2025

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 24, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
04:43

Visualizing Visual Adaptation

Published on: April 24, 2017

A perceptual process approach to selecting color scales for complex visualizations.

Leonard A Breslow1, J Gregory Trafton, Raj M Ratwani

  • 1Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375, USA. len.breslow@nrl.navy.mil

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Applied
|March 25, 2009
PubMed
Summary

Multicolored scales aid identification tasks, while ordered brightness scales excel at comparisons. This study reveals how visualization scale types impact user task performance and cognitive processes.

More Related Videos

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions
07:09

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions

Published on: May 2, 2019

Applying Hyperspectral Reflectance Imaging to Investigate the Palettes and the Techniques of Painters
07:05

Applying Hyperspectral Reflectance Imaging to Investigate the Palettes and the Techniques of Painters

Published on: June 18, 2021

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 24, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation
04:43

Visualizing Visual Adaptation

Published on: April 24, 2017

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions
07:09

Integrating Visual Psychophysical Assays within a Y-Maze to Isolate the Role that Visual Features Play in Navigational Decisions

Published on: May 2, 2019

Applying Hyperspectral Reflectance Imaging to Investigate the Palettes and the Techniques of Painters
07:05

Applying Hyperspectral Reflectance Imaging to Investigate the Palettes and the Techniques of Painters

Published on: June 18, 2021

Area of Science:

  • Data Visualization
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Psychology

Background:

  • Previous research indicates multicolored scales outperform ordered brightness scales for identification tasks.
  • Ordered brightness scales are superior for relative comparison tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the cognitive processes underlying task performance with different visualization color scales.
  • To compare how scale type and size affect identification and comparison tasks.

Main Methods:

  • Eye-tracking was used to study user behavior.
  • Performance was compared across different scale sizes and types (multicolored vs. ordered brightness).

Main Results:

  • Identification tasks involve serial visual search, sensitive to color count and discriminability.
  • Comparison tasks use parallel search for multicolored scales and direct visual comparison for brightness scales.
  • Identification performance degrades with scale size (>10 colors), particularly for brightness scales.

Conclusions:

  • Understanding the cognitive processes associated with different color scales is crucial for effective data visualization design.
  • Scale design should consider task type and potential limitations with increasing scale size to optimize user performance.