Animating Cartographic Meaning: Unveiling the Impact of Pictorial Symbol Motion Speed in Preattentive Processing

Abstract

The primary objective of this study is to assess how the motion of dynamic point symbols impacts preattentive processing on a map. Specifically, it involves identifying the motion velocity parameters for cartographic animated pictorial symbols that contribute to the preattentive perception of the target symbols. We created five pictorial symbols, each accompanied by a unique animation tailored to convey the meaning associated with each symbol. The animation dynamics of symbols on the administrative map were distributed across arithmetic, logarithmic, and exponential scales. Eye-tracking technology was utilized to explain the user’s visual attention. The key findings reveal that, although movement does not uniformly hold the same designation in cartographic communication, it could guide user attention to identify the value peaks in quantitative map visualization. Motion velocity enhances the salience of animated symbols, making them stand out, not only against static elements but also against other animated distractors. Additionally, motion distributions between symbol classes based on exponential or arithmetic scales were identified as the most successful. Nevertheless, certain types of motion, such as rotational, do not perform well with pictorial symbols, even on the most effective motion distribution scale.

OnMapGaze and GraphGazeD: A Gaze Dataset and a Graph-Based Metric for Modeling Visual Perception Differences in Cartographic Backgrounds Used in Online Map Services

“…The examination of visual behavior during map reading could be based on both the analysis and visualization of experimental gaze data [16]. Over the last decades, a considerable number of experimental studies have been conducted to investigate both the effectiveness and efficiency of cartographic products such as interactive maps [17,18], animated maps [19][20][21][22][23][24], and web 2 of 18 maps [13,[25][26][27]. The study of map users' behaviors requires developing simple or more sophisticated approaches that reveal crucial information related to user perception and cognition.…”