ruth@utstat.uucp (Ruth Croxford) (11/01/88)
William Playfair (1759-1823), a Scottish engineer turned economist, entrepreneur, and political commentator, is generally considered to be the father of modern statistical graphics. Among other achievements, he is credited with the invention of three widely used and important graphs: the pie chart, the bar chart, and the line graph. Although two centuries have passed since his work, and despite increasing use of visual displays for the presentation and analysis of data, very little is known about how people perceive, process, and understand graphs. The past decade has seen the emergence of a new area of research that seeks to understand how people process graphical displays. So far statisticians and psychologists have been the principal contributors, but workers in other disciplines have begun to pay attention to these developments in "cognitive statistics". To provide a forum for discussion and research, we propose the formation of an interdisciplinary group which will convene every second Wednesday, from 2:00p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in Sidney Smith Hall, room 570, beginning on November 2. In recognition of William Playfair's pioneering contributions, we have called this interest group The Playfair Society. We welcome the participation of faculty and graduate students at the University of Toronto. Forthcoming Meetings of The Playfair Society: Nov. 2 Stephan Lewandowsky Displaying proportions and percentages Nov. 16 Ian Spence Graphs and psychophysics Nov. 30 Colin Macleod Graphs and cognition Jan. 11 Robert S. Lockhart Graphs and memory Jan. 25 Ian Spence The origins of graphs For more information, please contact Ian Spence: utstat.toronto.edu!spence