Category: News

Ever had to look at a data visualization while you were in a lousy mood? Chances are you were more likely to make an error in visual judgment than if you had been feeling more cheerful. New research suggests that putting users in an emotionally positive mindset improves their accuracy in interpreting data visualizations. So even if your company publishes only the occasional graph, provoking a positive emotional response in the audience might just help you get your data across more accurately. Moreover, as research in this area grows more nuanced, companies producing visual analytic tools and products may be able to enhance their effectiveness by designing with emotion in mind.

It’s already broadly accepted that emotion (or affect as it’s called in psychology) can influence different cognitive processes like attention, memory, creativity, and problem solving. As design-thinking legend Don Norman writes in his book Emotional Design, “When you are in a state of negative affect, feeling anxious or endangered, neurotransmitters focus the brain processing,” allowing for concentration on details. “Positive affect arouses curiosity, engages creativity, and makes the brain into an effective learning organism,” allowing for a less-focused and broader view of the situation.

Recently published research from Ph.D. student Lane Harrison and collaborators extends this understanding of affect and brain processing to the realm of data visualization. Their results experimentally show that people who were positively primed — put in a good mood by reading a lighthearted news article — made less visual judgment errors across a range of different charts than people who were negatively primed. Moreover they found that it was the positive priming that was decreasing error rather than the negative priming increasing it.

What does this mean for companies designing data visualization tools and environments? If visual judgment and analytic accuracy is of the utmost importance, like in finance, intelligence, or health-care, you might think about how to integrate positive priming into the user’s experience. The broader idea is something that scholars Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, in their book Nudge, call “libertarian paternalism” — biasing experiences to correct for cognitive deficiencies in human reasoning.

So, if users are less error prone when they’re happy, why not design that emotional response into their tools and environments?

If only it were that easy. The news articles used as the affective primes in Harrison’s study only nudged the mood of 30% of participants. It’s also unclear how long an affective prime really lasts, how “durable” it can be. In the study, the subjects looked at the visualization right after reading the positive or negative story, but in a real use-context people are exposed to all kinds of different things that might confound an attempt to bias their mood: nutty co-workers, startling news events, soothing music, frenetic social media, or dreamy personal ruminations, all of which can be hard to control.

Manipulating emotions may come with its own set of slippery slopes and gotchas too. Another study from 2011 used images of things like smiling babies and rollicking puppies to induce positive affect in a creativity task. But imagine a somber data visualization about a patient’s health vitals surrounded by such an artificial attempt to manipulate the user into a positive, more accurate mood. The tension between the desired affect and the inherent tone of the content could be problematic or even backfire entirely.

Less intrusive ways to put users in a positive frame of mind include making the interface more aesthetically pleasing or changing the lighting or color in the user’s environment. Environmental conditions that Don Norman cites as engendering a positive affect include sweet smells, soothing sounds, harmonious music, symmetry, and smooth objects. Such environmental changes might stand in less direct conflict with underlying content than an interface that is actively trying to manipulate mood.

It should be clear that there are challenges here: When, how, and how much might you want to provoke emotion? And should you design it into the tool, or into the environment? These questions will get sorted out as the research in this area improves, but what we do know is that whether the end-users of your company’s data visualizations are customers, the public, or a group of internal analysts, it might just be worthwhile to keep those users in a cheerful mood.

Hey, dads out there: do you ever feel like your kid is getting in the middle of your conversations with your spouse? So much so, that it may as well just be another man in the house instead of your sweet, adorable child?

Here’s what you’re about to see:

“Actual conversations with my 2 year old daughter, as re-enacted by me and another full grown man.”

Creator Matthew Clarke says this is Episode 1, so I’m assuming that means he plans to do an Episode 2 and maybe more beyond that. Good. We’ll we watching.

[via ConvosWith2YrOld, YouTube]

Actor and martial arts star Chuck Norris is, in jokes, capable of amazing feats. Counting to infinity, for example. What action movie fans might not know, however, is that Norris is a staunch conservative and a Christian.

Last fall, Norris and his wife released a video that tacitly endorsed Mitt Romney for U.S. President. In the video, he speaks of the U.S. being at a “tipping point” and quotes President Ronad Reagan, warning of “1,000 years of darkness” if America doesn’t “change direction.”

Now, Norris has penned an essay about why Tim Tebow is his favorite NFL quarterback. Writing on conservative news website WorldNetDaily, Norris recalls Tebow’s short professional career before stating he has “never seen a more determined and inspiring athlete play the game of football.” From the essay:

I’ve heard the so-called critics say Tebow has poor technical skills, but the truth is that Tim is a natural-born leader, an amazingly gifted football player, an inspiration to his team and the possessor of intense determination and strategy to bring any team to victory – no matter what the odds. One can improve technique, but leadership is innate. That is why I believe Tebow could be a super star and legend in the NFL.

Norris’ op-ed comes as Tebow is currently a free agent with no apparent prospects other than offers from arena league football teams. NFL teams such as the Miami Dolphins have not shown intrest in the quarterback, though his fans have even petitioned President Obama to intervene on his behalf.

Prepublication Now Available

Physical inactivity is a key determinant of health across the lifespan. A lack of activity increases the risk of heart disease, colon and breast cancer, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, osteoporosis, anxiety and depression and others diseases. Emerging literature has suggested that in terms of mortality, the global population health burden of physical inactivity approaches that of cigarette smoking. The prevalence and substantial disease risk associated with physical inactivity has been described as a pandemic.

The prevalence, health impact, and evidence of changeability all have resulted in calls for action to increase physical activity across the lifespan. In response to the need to find ways to make physical activity a health priority for youth, the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Physical Activity and Physical Education in the School Environment was formed. Its purpose was to review the current status of physical activity and physical education in the school environment, including before, during, and after school, and examine the influences of physical activity and physical education on the short and long term physical, cognitive and brain, and psychosocial health and development of children and adolescents.

Educating the Student Body makes recommendations about approaches for strengthening and improving programs and policies for physical activity and physical education in the school environment. This report lays out a set of guiding principles to guide its work on these tasks. These included: recognizing the benefits of instilling life-long physical activity habits in children; the value of using systems thinking in improving physical activity and physical education in the school environment; the recognition of current disparities in opportunities and the need to achieve equity in physical activity and physical education; the importance of considering all types of school environments; the need to take into consideration the diversity of students as recommendations are developed.

This report will be of interest to local and national policymakers, school officials, teachers, and the education community, researchers, professional organizations, and parents interested in physical activity, physical education, and health for school-aged children and adolescents.

[Read the full report]

Topics: Health and Medicine | Education

The leaked builds of Windows 8.1 provided a pretty strong clue that Microsoft intends to support WebGL in Internet Explorer 11, but so far the software giant has stayed silent on such matters.

However, a new Vine clip — part of an on-going series titled “Not your Father’s Browser” — drops a pretty big hint that WebGL (Web Graphics Library) support is definitely on its way.

The series follows the relationship between the old Internet Explorer, and his son, the modern version of the browser. Given the apparent age gap between them, it’s clear old IE has lived a hard life.

In the latest vine, episode 9, IE Sr. holds up a plastic bag containing the letters H, T, M, L and the number 5, like it’s a drugs stash, and says “HTML5? What’s next WebGL?” and both browsers slowly turn to look at the camera. Cute. (You’ll want to turn on the sound to follow what’s going on.)

You can catch up on the full series at Internet Explorer’s Twitter account.

As stated in the Google Glass Terms of Sale, it is absolutely forbidden for a user to sell their pair of Google Glass Explorer Edition. So, in a display of blatant disregard and price inflation, one crafty user is selling their pair for $6,000 on Craigslist. While Google did put some measurements in place to keep the early models from changing hands, Google does not plan on bricking any of the Explorer devices.

The post featured photos of the box and the Glass in its original packaging and appears to be the real deal. Whether or not they are functional is another question entirely. The poster has come up with a nifty way around the Glass’s one personal account limit by connecting the device to an empty account, which will also be sold/transferred to the prospective buyer.

What do you think? Would you pay $6,000 to have the coolest new gadget before everyone else, or would you prefer to wait until next year when it is formally released to the public. Let us know in the comments!

Source: CNET

Come comment on this article: Google Glass Explorer Edition shows up on Craigslist for $6,000

Let the cloud price chopping continue.

A week after Google announced its Cloud Datastore managed NoSQL database, it’s cutting its price, according to a Google blog post.

That means a 25 percent lower prices in some cases for both CloudStore per se and Google App Engine’s High Replication Datastore (HRD).

So that’s the latest cloud price cut, but it won’t be the last. Next up: Amazon? Microsoft?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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When I was 18 a buddy of mine came over to my parents house driving his father’s Morgan Plus 8. It packed an old Buick V8 engine, was what felt like 3-inches off the ground and had a frame that was made of wood. In short, it was one of the most terrifying things I’d ever ridden in up until that point. Jay Leno recently had a buddy stop by his garage with a highly modified Morgan Plus 8 that was set up for the road course. It was loud, low and by today’s standards, like driving an ox cart. It does however look like one helluva lot of fun, so make sure to check it out after the jump.

Source: JayLenosGarage.com

Rockstar Games announced today that Grand Theft Auto V will be joining an increasing number of AAA blockbuster titles that will get two separate collector’s editions with the more expensive set packing in numerous physical items.

First up is the $80 special edition for Grand Theft Auto V. Here’s all that comes with it: