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arXiv · 2009.13368

Using Resource-Rational Analysis to Understand Cognitive Biases in Interactive Data Visualizations

Ryan Wesslen·Doug Markant·Alireza Karduni·Wenwen Dou
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Abstract

Cognitive biases are systematic errors in judgment. Researchers in data visualizations have explored whether cognitive biases transfer to decision-making tasks with interactive data visualizations. At the same time, cognitive scientists have reinterpreted cognitive biases as the product of resource-rational strategies under finite time and computational costs. In this paper, we argue for the integration of resource-rational analysis through constrained Bayesian cognitive modeling to understand cognitive biases in data visualizations. The benefit would be a more realistic "bounded rationality" representation of data visualization users and provides a research roadmap for studying cognitive biases in data visualizations through a feedback loop between future experiments and theory

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Ryan Wesslen, Doug Markant, Alireza Karduni, Wenwen Dou. 2020-09-28. Using Resource-Rational Analysis to Understand Cognitive Biases in Interactive Data Visualizations. https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.13368

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