Fans of Edward Tufte are familiar with his criticisms of “Chart Junk”, all the extra pretty or frilly stuff that has almost nothing to do with the data but serves to catch the eye and fill blank space. Robert Kosara points us to a paper (View Online) by Scott Batement and others from the University of Saskatchewan that shows the “chart junk” may be useful in activating neural pathways improving recall, while not actually contributing to the information.
The study consisted of two possible recall tasks, one five minutes after being shown the charts, and one two to three weeks later. The authors found that in both cases, participants had a significantly higher chance of getting the message of the chart in the case of the highly embellished Holmes-style chart. And while there were no significant differences in recalling the subject, categories, and trend between the two chart types after five minutes, all three were significantly better for Holmes-style charts in the long-term case.
