The Role of Visual Perception in Data Visualization

This paper presents a perceptually motivated formal framework for effective visualization of relational data. In this framework, the intended structure of data and the perceptual structure of visualizations are formally and uniformly defined in terms of relations that are induced on data and visual elements by data and visual attributes, respectively. Visual attributes are analyzed and classified from the perceptual point of view and in terms of perceptual relations that they induce on visual elements. The presented framework satisfies a necessary condition for effective data visualizations. This condition is formulated in terms of a structure preserving map between the intended structure of data and the perceptual structure of visualization.