AUTHOREA
Log in Sign Up Browse Preprints

Lucy Chen edited What_s_the_science_behind__.html  almost 8 years ago

Commit id: 6a59c002821a426c2ec90fe7adc3c16b65469387

deletions | additions      

       

What's 
Cue Vip Sitaraman. The founder of PubDraw, an open access, graphical science publishing platform, breaks down for us why infographics are the future of funding:

What's  the science behind why people love infographics? 

There's infographics? 
There's  overwhelming evidence that infographics are extremely effective at catching people's attention, and that sticking ability isn't going away. In fact, 3M conducted a study that found visuals are processed in the brain over 60,000 times faster than text.

The brain craves infographics because we suffer from information overload: the average attention span has dropped to 8 seconds since 1980 and people only read 28% of what they see.  Our eyes are neurally networked to take in a visual scene in under 1 second while it takes 250 seconds to recognize, then assign meaning to symbols (think of each word in a sentence as a symbol). This explains why 80% of people are more willing to read an infographic--and they learn and retain information 32% better as a result too.


Why should scientists care?

It's become clear that writing papers and getting grants won't cut it in academia anymore.  Many tenure-track professors, especially those non-applied sciences, argue that layperson outreach and science communication are superfluous extensions of "cold, hard science" (see Reddit thread). To such skeptics, let me point out a correlation, and to that, attach a hypothesis:

Correlation: Funding for science is dropping along with public perception of scientists.
Hypothesis: The above is not merely correlation; rather, causation.

The the cycle of science explains why climate change researchers recently saw a cut in their funding, with low layperson education on climate change:
  1. Policymakers create grants for science ->
  2. Scientists conduct and publish research using grants ->
  3. This research molds public opinion on science ->
  4. Public opinion influences policy makers.

What can scientists do?


Infographics are a great way to attract a larger audience, both laypeople and scientists alike. While the public outreach is more important to scientists in fields like environmental science and public health, the benefits for other career-track scientists are undeniable. For example, researchers that have created infographics such as visuals of paper abstracts with PubDraw have seen over an average of 1.6 more citations and 10X more social engagement.