Visualization Psychology

Before 2010, each VIS conference typically featured 0-2 papers on empirical studies. The VisWeek 2010 in Salt Lake City became a turning point, and since then more and more empirical study papers have been presented at VIS. Between 2016 and 2019, there were some 60 empirical study papers in VIS/TVCG tracks. Many young talents who are knowledgeable in both VIS and psychology emerged in the VIS community, while many colleagues in psychology are authoring and co-authoring such papers and attending VIS conferences. It is therefore timely to ask the two communities: Is there a need for Visualization Psychology as a new interdisciplinary subject?

There are many branches of applied psychology, such as clinical psychology, counselling psychology, educational psychology, forensic psychology, health psychology, industrial-organisational psychology, legal psychology, media psychology, music psychology, occupational psychology, sports psychology, and so on. Almost all of these are widely-recognized academic subjects and have their own conferences and journals. Since interactive visualization and visual analytics encompass most human-centric processes in data science and real-world data intelligence workflows, many will argue for the necessity and feasibility for developing Visualization Psychology in a coherent and organized manner.

This is the first workshop that will enable the experts in VIS and psychology to define the scope of this new subject of Visualization Psychology collectively, and stimulate new research directions and activities in both fields. The goals of the workshop are:

1. to broaden the scope of empirical research in VIS to involve more cognitive aspects in addition to considering visualization a vision or perception problem;

2. to provide researchers in VIS with a significant platform to develop their theories and experiments in addition to acquiring knowledge from psychology;

3. to enable researchers in psychology to explore VIS as a rich playground and carry out research beyond the existing moulds; and

4. to enable the development of the young talents in VIS and psychology through the development of a new interdisciplinary subject and the platforms for research communication, publications, and collaboration.