Keynote Lecture: Leveraging Human Capabilities in Information Perceptualization

The term “information visualization” was coined in 1989, inspired by the idea of applying scientific visualization techniques to abstract information spaces. The fundamental insight was that humans are very good at recognizing patterns, and this can help us make sense out of complex information. Much of the research in information visualization during the last ten years has leveraged human visual perception. But if we take a broader look at natural human capabilities, there are other cognitive and perceptual capabilities that we are not leveraging as well. For example, when we perceive patterns in the real world, we use our other senses, particularly hearing and haptics, in addition to vision. Perhaps we should rename this field “information perceptualization,” and focus on using multiple channels of human information processing to facilitate pattern recognition.