Visualization and 5 Senses
By: Olga Kouzina
Tags: Information Visualization, Insights, Big Data, Data Visualization, Learning

It’s interesting to trace the origin of trends in business and technology back to the intrinsic needs that we as humans develop in the changing environment. People influence technology, technology influences people, and the cynical adage that laziness drives all progress proves to be true time and again. In my earlier articles I explored the Big Data trend showing how it might have originated from a human-natured desire to ease off on the responsibilities of prioritizing and making decisions. Or, why the evolution of Agile movement has purely human implications. Or, why they resorted to Kanban after trying Scrum because of Kanban’s “no deadline” philosophy.

Today I want to share some thoughts on the origins and history of visualization. Why the trend to visualize has come to the fore in the recent years, acquiring more and more evangelists? I like to dig deep, so I’ll first take a look as far back as at the prehistoric times. This analysis will provide some food for thought, and maybe will help you see how other technology trends are downright rooted in the properties of human psyche and physique. The one with knowledge is the one who is powerful, so make yourself comfortable and read on.

The Five Senses in Prehistoric Times

Ancient hunters and gatherers relied on their five senses as the devices to signal an immediate threat, or a promise of food or water. Like, a certain smell in the air might have meant something. Or, a sound of a dangerous animal moving in the forest. Or any other sign of a danger. In fact, actually seeing some dangerous thing might have been too late. Some fast-running predator could grab a defenseless human in an instant, leaving zero option for a retreat. Eyesight worked as a part of the 5-component system and did not receive overload as compared to the other senses. One example of a visualization from those times would be cave paintings, created as a ritual for success at hunting.

This concept differs from what we regard as “visualization” nowadays. Cave paintings represent a projected vision of those hunters who believed that if they visualize their plea, it would help them survive. I’ve singled out this particular case for the sake of showing that the sense of vision might not have meant that much to ancient humans as a sense of perception, but was more important as a sense of projection. I’m using a simplified perspective here on purpose.

The Five Senses in the Information Age

Taking a huge leap, we now move on to the Information Age which started somewhere in the second half of the 20th century and continues through now. I’ve skipped the industrial revolution as the changes that it brought about weren’t as drastic and lifestyle-altering as the changes coming along with the Information Age (at least, that’s the way it looks to me as to a contemporary human being :). Besides, information visualization haven’t made substantial advancements until the past decade or two. Next, let’s consider how the perceptual load is distributed between the five senses in the modern times. There’s hardly any need to visualize this as a distribution chart *ironic*, because it goes without saying that eyesight is the most overloaded out of all our five senses. Some people perceive information via their unlocked 6th sense ESP, but my article is not about that. It’s a given that most of the signals that we receive from the external environment are coming through our eyes. This is especially true for the information technology workers.

Today, in the Information Age, we spend most of our lives looking at digital screens. Phones, laptops, TV. Hearing might stand a chance of competing with eyesight. But the senses of smell, taste, and touch have faded in their significance as compared to the prehistoric times. I pondered once how amazing would it be if we were able to smell a fragrance that we consider purchasing over the web. Or to touch this carpet to feel if it’s really that soft, thick, and comfy. But we only have our eyesight for anything that comes from a screen (mostly). We’ve traded the other senses for a more comfortable existence, and we have to deal with the consequences of this choice… that’s why our body — as well as our mind — instinctively wants to develop some coping mechanisms for this overload.

Visualize for Watching Less?

In view of the above, I regard the modern trend for data and information visualization simply as a consequence of the overloaded eyesight. Our collective unconscious makes us come up with ways to limit exposure to visual signals, striving to keep all the 5 senses balanced. It’s hardly that the sense of smell, or touch, or taste would gain precedence over eyesight and hearing as the primary information channels, but at least some coping mechanisms can be developed. That’s why we tend to present textual information as laconic visuals if there’s too much to read (as shown in this brief write-up on the taxonomy of names in sports leagues). Or, with data visualization, we now prefer to make sense of analytical reports presented as visuals, rather than as texts. It just takes too damn long to read them as texts! Have mercy on our poor eyesight, someone! That’s what the trend for visualization is about. By the way, you certainly have seen how office folks like to listen to whatever plays in their earphones. This might be a yet another unconscious attempt to ease up on the overloaded eyesight by shifting balance to the hearing receptors. Hearing is the only other sense that we can use as we work at screens. In fact, any attempt to distribute the load onto the 3 other senses — taste, touch, and smell — might turn out to be disturbing to the colleagues with whom we share office spaces :)

No doubt, we can understand concepts and do analytics faster with visuals. Let alone quickness, a more powerful driving force for that trend is something that sits deep inside of us, humans, as we want to keep our senses in balance. Another example of an imbalance in the eyesight-hearing duo would be texting. Natural communication involves hearing and speaking. If for the most part people “talk” by means of typing, this adds up to the overload that our eyesight experiences processing all the other kinds of information. It feels like a huge energy drain if I’m expected to spend much time checking text messages or comments online. That’s the reason why I do this sparingly. I’m not sure which subliminal remedy is in store for that particular kind of overload. Will we develop some universal hieroglyphic writing as a replacement for phonetic-based written texts, for the sake of saving our eyesight? I don’t have answer to this question so far.

Related:

Cut Yourself Some Slack From Slack

The Dietitians of Info-Sharing

Visualization: Why The Fusion of Art and Tech Matters

Visualizing Music

Why Self-Organization Is a Luxury

Further reading:

My 12 Visualization Books