Reaction: Attention and Visual Memory in Visualization and Computer Graphics

This paper, on human perception, puts forth the relevance of psychophysics to scientific and information visualization. Especially interesting is the discussion on the theories of pre-attentive processing and the article on how visualization and graphics can interact to come up with effective visualizations for conveying the right information. I found the concepts presented easier to understand due to the kinds of experiments carried out by the authors, like identifying red circle from a sea of blue ones, although, it is quite confusing why a user won't be able to distinguish the stream of a superimposed woman walking with an umbrella, which seems a routine task. On the plus side, if I was to pursue a career in visualization design, I would definitely refer to this paper to extract some pointers on how to avoid visual confusion.