Choice of y-axis can mislead readers

Using two examples from the non-scientific literature, we show how choice of unit of measure and scaling of y-axis can caused a biased perception of data, a phenomenon we propose to call perception bias. We recommend to pre-specify unit of measure or how it will be determined, whether outcome variab...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Erdogan, Betül R., Vollert, Jan, Michel, Martin C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2020
Materias:
Brief Communication
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7419489/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32588070
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00210-020-01926-x
Descripción
Sumario:Using two examples from the non-scientific literature, we show how choice of unit of measure and scaling of y-axis can caused a biased perception of data, a phenomenon we propose to call perception bias. We recommend to pre-specify unit of measure or how it will be determined, whether outcome variables will be shown as absolute or relative/normalized changes, and to typically start y-axis at 0 for ratio variables.

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