By Kyle Campion, Washington State University Neuroscience Student
Throughout this past semester I’ve learned one big problem with scientists: most of us scientists can’t communicate science! You may not see this as the problem that it is, but let me explain. Take a moment and name off three scientists. You might have thought of names such as Bill Nye the science guy or Neil deGrasse Tyson, but why isn’t there more coming to mind? What sets the typical scientist apart from these popular science figures is their ability to convey information. The same thing separates data you want to look at, and data that you don’t. I’m going to take you through data visualization, and walk you through an example in scientific applications.
You might be thinking that Bill Nye can just talk about science in an engaging way, but let us think of his show Bill Nye the Science Guy, a childhood favorite of mine. Although he did not have fancy dose-response graphs, or cellular transduction data to present he still had science to explain to kids. He would show them something that would stick in their mind. Nye also had a distinct enthusiasm and metaphorical examples to ease explaining complex terms or processes.
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So what am I getting at? Well, imagery is a useful technique in conveying data. We had a guest lecture in our Neuroscience capstone class led by Dr. John Barber, a professor of creative media and digital culture. He had a few very interesting ways to think about creating and consuming data. He told us to imagine that our data; however we graphed it, was on a billboard. Easy enough, but that billboard was next to a highway, you’re going 60 mph, its pouring rain, you’ve got no wipers, and it’s also midnight so there isn’t much light. Now considering these conditions, you can imagine that you probably won’t gather much more than the title assuming it’s easy to consume. Though, if you’re not aware, let me tell you that most scientific data figures ARE NOT easy to comprehend unless it’s in your field of study. His recommendation was to use images to display your exciting findings.
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An example you ask? Well, in my case I’ve been researching how morphine deals with pain in two adjacent regions of the brain. On the right I’ve generated an example graph. Since we use a thermal test for pain, you could have a fire symbol denoting pain endured, and then you could have a bar graph comparing region A and region B. For each 10 second period they endured the thermal test there would be a symbol of fire. This will make it easy to see the difference, because there is obviously more pain tolerance in region A than B.
This technique is applicable to any discipline to make the data more accessible. This can be challenging in some situations because of the sheer mass of data or certain complexities in your data. Taking the advice of Dr. John Barber is one way to make sure that a passerby will be able to comprehend enough of your data at a poster presentation to stop and inquire further!
