![]() ![]() So our brains are fantastically good at recognizing objects, and we piggybacked on that ability which evolved for all kinds of other reasons - identifying prey and so forth. Now that is an amazing thing because if you think about it, we have huge numbers of memories of things we've seen before and in order for you to recognize something, it has to function sort of like a key that fits into the appropriate lock that opens the information that you've learned at previous encounters.Īnd we're able to do that, we're able to take the input, the key, and compare it to all those locks, all those different memories from pervious experience, and pick out just the right one in a fraction of a second. I mean, our brains are absolutely phenomenal in their ability to see something completely unexpected come out of the blue and within a fraction of a second identify what it is. KOSSLYN: Infographics draw on our virtuoso abilities to recognize objects. Now, Stephen, your work is in neuroscience and visual perception. So we've very visual thinkers and infographics allow us to tap into that ability to see things visually, and when we read words it a very different process.ĭANKOSKY: If you have questions or thought about how you use infographics, you can join us, 1-80. I covered science for a long time for the Boston Globe and at one point I was doing this story about an experiment that Harvard was planning on doing in which they were going to be cloning stem cells.Īnd I worked really hard on that paragraph planning what exactly that means, but then the guys over at the infographic department came up with this neat little chart and all of a sudden it was very easy to visualize what it is. I mean, what can we tell an infographic that we can't just write down in a very nice little paragraph?ĬOOK: Well, just the medium are two very different things and I know from personal experience how much more effective an infographic can be in certain cases. They're help.ĭANKOSKY: Now, when I told people on Twitter that I was going to be having this conversation, somebody wrote to me and said: You know, infographics are great sometimes but often just a well-written paragraph would tell a much better story. So we have big data and we need big help, and that's what infographics are. If you just think about all the data that we have now: We have satellites, we have location data on our phones, we have tech searches, we have all these different kinds of data and we feel overwhelmed by it. ![]() And I think that the fundamental reason is that what infographics do is they allow you to quickly make sense of a large amount of information, and a large amount of information is one of the defining features of our time. So there's all different kinds of infographics.ĬOOK: I was just going to say, I mean, you also asked why are we seeing so much of them now and I think you're absolutely right. ![]() It's a visual display of data, so it can be as simple as a line graph or a pie chart or as ambitious as a 3D interactive exploration of how a tornado is formed. To start, an infographic is just information in graphic form. Maybe you could explain, first of all, what an infographic is.ĬOOK: Well, sure. You've used them as a science journalist for years, but it seems as if they're really big right now. Kosslyn.ĭANKOSKY: First of all, I'll start with you Gareth. It's great to be here.ĭANKOSKY: And Stephen Kosslyn is a neuroscientists and founding dean of the Minerva School of Arts and Sciences in San Francisco. He's also editor of a book out this month called, "The Best American Infographics 2013." It's a collection of some of the best of the past year as chosen by Gareth. Gareth Cook is a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist. So how can we tell the good infographics from the bad, and can we use infographics to talk about science without just dumbing it down? But not all infographics are created equal. In the age of big data, we depend on them more and more to communicate lots of information quickly. Maybe you opened the paper to find pie charts of the latest poll results. Did you catch the weather forecast this morning? Maybe you saw a rain cloud moving across a map of the U.S. Chances are, without even realizing it, you've seen at least one infographic today. ![]()
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