Okan, Y orcid.org/0000-0001-7963-1363, Garcia-Retamero, R, Cokely, ET et al. (1 more author) (2018) Biasing and debiasing health decisions with bar graphs: Costs and benefits of graph literacy. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71 (12). pp. 2506-2519. ISSN 1747-0218
Abstract
Bar graphs can improve risk communication in medicine and health. Unfortunately, recent research has revealed that bar graphs are associated with a robust bias that can lead to systematic judgement and decision-making errors. When people view bar graphs representing means, they tend to believe that data points located within bars are more likely to be part of the underlying distributions than equidistant points outside bars. In three experiments, we investigated potential consequences, key cognitive mechanisms, and generalisability of the within-the-bar bias in the medical domain. We also investigated the effectiveness of different interventions to reduce the effect of this bias and protect people from errors. Results revealed that the within-the-bar bias systematically affected participants’ judgements and decisions concerning treatments for controlling blood glucose, as well as their interpretations of ecological graphs designed to guide health policy decisions. Interestingly, individuals with higher graph literacy showed the largest biases. However, the use of dot plots to replace bars improved the accuracy of interpretations. Perceptual mechanisms underlying the within-the-bar bias and prescriptive implications for graph design are discussed.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017, Experimental Psychology Society. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. |
Keywords: | Graph comprehension; graph design; medical decision-making; graph literacy; risk communication |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Management Division (LUBS) (Leeds) > Management Division Decision Research (LUBS) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Cancer Research UK C57775/A22182 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 03 Nov 2017 17:00 |
Last Modified: | 14 Dec 2018 12:04 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/1747021817744546 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:123186 |