An Examination of Cleveland and McGill's Hierarchy of Graphical Elements

摘要

Two experiments were conducted to examine Cleveland and McGills' theory of graph perception. In Experiment 1 participants made judgments about the individual perceptual elements. In Experiment 2, participants were presented with graphs that isolated specific perceptual elements. Although the original hierarchy included ten elements, the current research suggested that, depending on the task, there may be no more than three or four individual rankings. This research presents the first attempt at a comprehensive examination of the relationship between the perception of isolated graph elements and how these elements affect graph reading.