Ian Spence (psychologist)

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Ian Spence (born 1944) is a Scottish-Canadian psychologist, and Emeritus Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, known for his work on graphical perception, [1] psychometric methods [2] and the history of statistical graphics, specifically on the life and work of William Playfair. [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]

Contents

Life and work

Born in Scotland, Spence received his Bsc in mathematics, physics, and psychology at the University of Glasgow, and his PhD in 1970 from the University of Toronto with the thesis, entitled "Multidimensional scaling; an empirical and theoretical investigation."

Spence started his academic career as Assistant Professor at the University of Western Ontario. Later on he moved to University of Toronto, where he became Professor in the Department of Psychology.

Spence's research interests are in the fields of "engineering psychology, graphical perception, psychophysics, psychometric methods with an emphasis on measurement and scaling, and statistics." [8] His research projects in the new millennium included "the effective use of colour in scientific visualization, the role of colour in visual memory, individual differences in spatial cognition, and the navigation of dynamic information displays such as web sites." [8]

Selected publications

Articles, a selection:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychometrics</span> Theory and technique of psychological measurement

Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally refers to specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and related activities. Psychometrics is concerned with the objective measurement of latent constructs that cannot be directly observed. Examples of latent constructs include intelligence, introversion, mental disorders, and educational achievement. The levels of individuals on nonobservable latent variables are inferred through mathematical modeling based on what is observed from individuals' responses to items on tests and scales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chart</span> Graphical representation of data

A chart is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabular numeric data, functions or some kinds of quality structure and provides different info.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychophysics</span> Branch of knowledge relating physical stimuli and psychological perception

Psychophysics quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce. Psychophysics has been described as "the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation" or, more completely, as "the analysis of perceptual processes by studying the effect on a subject's experience or behaviour of systematically varying the properties of a stimulus along one or more physical dimensions".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pie chart</span> Circular statistical graph that illustrates numerical proportion

A pie chart is a circular statistical graphic, which is divided into slices to illustrate numerical proportion. In a pie chart, the arc length of each slice is proportional to the quantity it represents. While it is named for its resemblance to a pie which has been sliced, there are variations on the way it can be presented. The earliest known pie chart is generally credited to William Playfair's Statistical Breviary of 1801.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Infographic</span> Graphic visual representation of information

Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly. They can improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system's ability to see patterns and trends. Similar pursuits are information visualization, data visualization, statistical graphics, information design, or information architecture. Infographics have evolved in recent years to be for mass communication, and thus are designed with fewer assumptions about the readers' knowledge base than other types of visualizations. Isotypes are an early example of infographics conveying information quickly and easily to the masses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Playfair</span> British polymath

William Playfair, a Scottish engineer and political economist, served as a secret agent on behalf of Great Britain during its war with France. The founder of graphical methods of statistics, Playfair invented several types of diagrams: in 1786 the line, area and bar chart of economic data, and in 1801 the pie chart and circle graph, used to show part-whole relations. As a secret agent, Playfair reported on the French Revolution and organized a clandestine counterfeiting operation in 1793 to collapse the French currency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathematical psychology</span> Mathematical modeling of psychological theories and phenomena

Mathematical psychology is an approach to psychological research that is based on mathematical modeling of perceptual, thought, cognitive and motor processes, and on the establishment of law-like rules that relate quantifiable stimulus characteristics with quantifiable behavior. The mathematical approach is used with the goal of deriving hypotheses that are more exact and thus yield stricter empirical validations. There are five major research areas in mathematical psychology: learning and memory, perception and psychophysics, choice and decision-making, language and thinking, and measurement and scaling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Data and information visualization</span> Visual representation of data

Data and information visualization is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data and information. It is a particularly efficient way of communicating when the data or information is numerous as for example a time series.

Spatial visualization ability or visual-spatial ability is the ability to mentally manipulate 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional figures. It is typically measured with simple cognitive tests and is predictive of user performance with some kinds of user interfaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Area chart</span> Type of chart

An area chart or area graph displays graphically quantitative data. It is based on the line chart. The area between axis and line are commonly emphasized with colors, textures and hatchings. Commonly one compares two or more quantities with an area chart.

Statistical graphics, also known as statistical graphical techniques, are graphics used in the field of statistics for data visualization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Friendly</span>

Michael Louis Friendly is an American-Canadian psychologist, Professor of Psychology at York University in Ontario, Canada, and director of its Statistical Consulting Service, especially known for his contributions to graphical methods for categorical and multivariate data, and on the history of data and information visualisation.

Psychometric software is software that is used for psychometric analysis of data from tests, questionnaires, or inventories reflecting latent psychoeducational variables. While some psychometric analyses can be performed with standard statistical software like SPSS, most analyses require specialized tools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basic science (psychology)</span> Subdisciplines within psychology

Some of the research that is conducted in the field of psychology is more "fundamental" than the research conducted in the applied psychological disciplines, and does not necessarily have a direct application. The subdisciplines within psychology that can be thought to reflect a basic-science orientation include biological psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and so on. Research in these subdisciplines is characterized by methodological rigor. The concern of psychology as a basic science is in understanding the laws and processes that underlie behavior, cognition, and emotion. Psychology as a basic science provides a foundation for applied psychology. Applied psychology, by contrast, involves the application of psychological principles and theories yielded up by the basic psychological sciences; these applications are aimed at overcoming problems or promoting well-being in areas such as mental and physical health and education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard Wainer</span>

Howard Wainer is an American statistician, past principal research scientist at the Educational Testing Service, adjunct professor of statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and author, known for his contributions in the fields of statistics, psychometrics, and statistical graphics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chingis Izmailov</span> Russian neuroscientist (1944–2011)

Chingis A. Izmailov was a Russian psychophysiologist and psychophysicist, the principal author of the spherical model of color space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Misleading graph</span> Graph that misrepresents data

In statistics, a misleading graph, also known as a distorted graph, is a graph that misrepresents data, constituting a misuse of statistics and with the result that an incorrect conclusion may be derived from it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard G. Funkhouser</span> American mathematician and historian (1898–1984)

Howard Gray Funkhouser was an American mathematician, historian and Associate Professor of Mathematics at the Washington and Lee University, and later at the Phillips Exeter Academy, particularly known for his early work on the history of graphical methods.

David Michael Thissen is an emeritus professor of quantitative psychology at the University of North Carolina and former President of the Psychometric Society. He is a fellow at the American Statistical Association and the American Psychological Society. He is known for his contributions to item response theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graphical perception</span>

Graphical perception is the human capacity for visually interpreting information on graphs and charts. Both quantitative and qualitative information can be said to be encoded into the image, and the human capacity to interpret it is sometimes called decoding. The importance of human graphical perception, what we discern easily versus what our brains have more difficulty decoding, is fundamental to good statistical graphics design, where clarity, transparency, accuracy and precision in data display and interpretation are essential for understanding the translation of data in a graph to clarify and interpret the science.

References

  1. Boot, W. R., Kramer, A. F., Simons, D. J., Fabiani, M., & Gratton, G. (2008). "The effects of video game playing on attention, memory, and executive control." Acta psychologica, 129(3), 387-398.
  2. Wilkinson, L., Wills, D., Rope, D., Norton, A., & Dubbs, R. (2006). The grammar of graphics. Springer.
  3. Spence, Ian, and Howard Wainer. "Who was Playfair Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine ." Chance 10.1 (1997): 35-37.
  4. Spence, Ian, and Howard Wainer. "William Playfair: A daring worthless fellow." Chance 10.1 (1997): 31-34.
  5. Spence, Ian, and Howard Wainer. "William Playfair." Statisticians of the Centuries. Springer New York, 2001. 105-110.
  6. Spence, Ian. "William Playfair and the psychology of graphs [ permanent dead link ]." 2006 JSM proceedings, American Statistical Association, Alexandria (2006): 2426-2436.
  7. Crampton, Jeremy W. The political mapping of cyberspace. University of Chicago Press, 2003.
  8. 1 2 Ian Spence at psych.utoronto.ca. Accessed 11.2014.