Bibliography:
Pertti Saariluoma is professor of cognitive science in the University of Helsinki. He is specialist in cognitive psychology, especially in cognitive skills, apperception and imagery research. In addition he has worked on human computer interaction and theoretical issues in psychology.
Pertti Saariluoma has visited and worked in Oxford, Carnegie-Mellon, Cambridge, Aberdeen Universities and IIASA. He has published among other things two books "Chess players´ thinking" and "Foundational analysis", which discuss about experts´ problem solving and presuppositions in experimental work.
Title:
Image and interface: Some psychological aspects of visualisation
Abstract:
The presentation discusses vizualisation from the psychological point
of view. No visualization can be better than how it is understood by various
types of readers and therefore it is important to have a clear idea
about the cognitive requirements of visualization. Consequently, both cognitive
system and the demands set for this system by various types of visualization
systems must be separately investigated.
The major limitations of human cognitive systems such as the capacity
of attention, and the different types of memories as well as the limits
in
more content-specific processes such as apperception and thinking will
be firstly studied. Knowledge of these psychological preconditions may
make it understandable, why different types of visualisation problems must
be handled differently.
The main distinctions between visualisation types are made on the ground
of human contact to the presented material. The most important dimensions
will be the difference between symbolic and analogical presentation format
as well as between direct contact and navigation based presentation. The
former distinction refers to the mode of information format, i.e.,
whether it is analogical with the target like a photograph or symbolic
like a word.
The second distinction refers in its elementary form to a difference
between information presentable in a single screen information and multiscreen
cases, in which all of the required material cannot be immediately perceived.
All these cases set very different demands for cognitive system. By being
aware of human limits, programmers should be able to make visualisation
more efficient and communicative.