No matter how you mark the points on the fever curve – threatening shapes do not add to threat of climate change

Abstract

Graphs have become an increasingly important means of representing data, for instance, when communicating data on climate change. However, graph characteristics might significantly affect graph comprehension. The goal of the present work was to test whether the marking forms usually depicted on line-graphs, can have an impact on graph evaluation. As past work suggests that triangular forms might be related to threat, we compared the effect of triangular marking forms with other symbols (triangles, circles, squares, rhombi, and asterisks) on subjective assessments. Participants in Study 1 (N = 314) received 5 different line-graphs about climate change, each of them using one out of 5 marking forms. In Study 1, the threat and arousal ratings of the graphs with triangular marking shapes were not higher than those with the other marking symbols. Participants in Study 2 (N = 279) received the same graphs, yet without labels and indeed rated the graphs with triangle point markers as more threatening. Testing whether local rather than global spatial attention would lead to an impact of marker shape in climate graphs, Study 3 (N = 307) documented that a task demanding to process a specific data-point on the graph (rather than just the line graph as a whole) did not lead to an effect either. These results suggest that marking symbols can principally affect threat and arousal ratings but not in the context of climate change. Hence, in graphs on climate change, choice of point markers does not have to take potential side-effects on threat and arousal into account. These seem to be restricted to the processing of graphs where form aspects face less competition from the content domain on judgments.