The power of visualization
And the power of our visual cortex.
Below is a chart of four different (x,y) coordinate sets. Review the data for a minute.
Is it easy or hard for you to understand what the numbers are conveying? Are the datasets similar, or different? What's going on? Maybe the summary statistics can tell us something... but notice that the summary statistics for each dataset are the same!
It's tough for us to mentally compute how the data differ from each other. We know they're different, and try to describe them in summary, but the summaries are unhelpful because they're all the same. You might also find it difficult to visualize the data in your head, in the form of a graph. We seem to struggle to understand numerical data in context.
How can we overcome this natural limitation?
The power of visualization.
Now, look at the image below, which is known as Anscombe's Quartet, which depicts the numerical information shown above, but visually, and therefore relationally (terms used abstractly).
It's immediately clear to a viewer how each set of (x,y) coordinates (or each graph) compares to the others, and what you can say about the data in each graph itself and what story they tell.
The bottom two graphs have clear outliers in certain directions.
In the top right graph, the slope of the line is successively turning more negative with each pair of points.
And in the top left graph, there is a distinctly large or small error, distributed roughly evenly between the points.
It's clear that visualizing data is very helpful and quite aligns with our natural abilities! We're wired to understand and relate visual information much more efficiently than we can numerical information.
Use this to your advantage!
References:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe%27s_quartet