The Effect of Visual Illusions on the Graphical Display of Information

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Graphical displays of business and accounting information are widely used as decision aids. Theoretical work in visual perception indicates graphs that exhibit certain characteristics create visual illusions that may result in biased decision making. This paper reports the results of an experiment that demonstrates how such two-dimensional and three-dimensional visual illusions cause viewers to make biased comparison judgments. The experiment also shows that these decision biases can be mitigated by including gridlines in both two- and three-dimensional graphs.