Effects of uncertainty visualization on attention, arousal, and judgment

Two experiments examine the effects of visualizing uncertainty on attention, cognitive arousal, and incorporation of uncertainty information into judgments. The first experiment employs psychophysiological measurements to understand how different presentations of uncertainty information influence decision making processes. Results indicate that participants attend more to uncertainty information when uncertainty is incorporated directly into a visualization. Pupillometry and eye tracking analyses indicate that participants exhibit greater attention to uncertainty information, fixate more on the bounds of uncertainty, and spend more time examining uncertainty information when uncertainty is visualized, compared to when uncertainty is depicted textually (i.e., not visually). In addition, the decisions of participants who view visualizations directly depicting uncertainty better integrate the level of uncertainty in the underlying data. The second experiment reveals that experienced auditors are more likely to appropriately use uncertainty information when it is visualized.