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...

Descripción completa

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
_version_ 1783569894827098112
author Erdogan, Betül R.
Vollert, Jan
Michel, Martin C.
author_facet Erdogan, Betül R.
Vollert, Jan
Michel, Martin C.
author_sort Erdogan, Betül R.
collection PubMed
description 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.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7419489
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher Springer Berlin Heidelberg
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-74194892020-08-18 Choice of y-axis can mislead readers Erdogan, Betül R. Vollert, Jan Michel, Martin C. Naunyn Schmiedebergs Arch Pharmacol Brief Communication 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. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2020-06-25 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC7419489/ /pubmed/32588070 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00210-020-01926-x Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Brief Communication
Erdogan, Betül R.
Vollert, Jan
Michel, Martin C.
Choice of y-axis can mislead readers
title Choice of y-axis can mislead readers
title_full Choice of y-axis can mislead readers
title_fullStr Choice of y-axis can mislead readers
title_full_unstemmed Choice of y-axis can mislead readers
title_short Choice of y-axis can mislead readers
title_sort choice of y-axis can mislead readers
topic Brief Communication
url 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
work_keys_str_mv AT erdoganbetulr choiceofyaxiscanmisleadreaders
AT vollertjan choiceofyaxiscanmisleadreaders
AT michelmartinc choiceofyaxiscanmisleadreaders

Ejemplares similares