Tuesday Talks

De maandelijkse dosis onderzoeksinspiratie van Leiden Science, van onze medewerkers, voor onze medewerkers en alle andere nieuwsgierigen. Op dinsdag 3 september geeft Ionica Smeets, hoogleraar wetenschapscommunicatie, een interessante lezing!

Tuesday Talks: Science Insights is een maandelijkse bijeenkomst bestaande uit een voor iedereen in onze community toegankelijke presentatie door een van onze onderzoekers, gevolgd door een borrel waar we informeel met elkaar wat kunnen drinken en bijpraten. De voertaal voor deze lezing is Engels. 

Programma

Over de lezing

Battling Misleading Graphs

Graphs are commonly used to communicate data about important topics or impactful messages, from scientific articles to mass media, and from patient information to political campaigns. Graphs should be designed to help readers interpret the underlying data correctly. However, as we all know, this is not always the case. Politicians may use truncated y-axes to exaggerate differences between themselves and their opponents, or companies might use 3D effects to make their success look greater. Surprisingly, there is little research on the effects of misleading graphs, and much research design advice is based on intuition rather than empirical data.

Smeets studies how to battle misleading graphs in long-term collaborations between her Department of Science Communication and Society and researchers in the Faculties of Humanities and Social and Behavioural Sciences. In this talk, Smeets will discuss randomized experiments on optimal graph design, how to most effectively debunk misleading bar charts, and how to avoid confusion in graphs showing inferential uncertainty. You will also be invited to report misleading graphs to the Graph Police.