Investigating the cognitive efficiency of interpretive animated diagram in thematic atlas: A quantitative test and evaluation

Taking a compound statistical diagram, 'Annual frequency and monthly mean frequency of tropical cyclones affecting China in 3-4 rain-days' from 'Climatological Atlas of Typical Cyclones Affecting China', as an example, we compare the differences in user cognitive efficiency and memory effectiveness between its animated and static versions. After an adaptive re-design of the original static diagram, we implemented a questionnaire on 24 college students all with a geographical background, which are chosen randomly as subjects to do quantitative experiments, statistical analysis and evaluation. The results show that the perceptive difference between animated and static forms is insignificant for the testees with involuntary attention; however, the perceptive efficiency of animated chart improves significantly for the users with voluntary attention. All above proves that the animated thematic diagrams are applicable because of their optimization on the visual communication and comprehension in thematic atlases reading scenarios.