Abstract
Over the last 50 years, psychologists have included numerous graphics in their journals and textbooks. The textbooks have contained mostly pictures, whereas the journals have contained mostly data graphs. Surprisingly, conceptual graphs (such as a network chart of the relations among types of memory) have been very infrequent. There are two main reasons for this absence of conceptual graphs: a lack of awareness of the important role that they have played in the history of our discipline, and a lack of knowledge about how to make them. Four types of conceptual graphs are presented here: mathematical graphs (e.g., Fechner’s law), geometric models (e.g., Henning’s smell prism), networks (e.g., Atkinson and Shiffrin’s STM-LTM model), and EulerVenn graphs (e.g., Shiffrin and Schneider’s model of control and automatic processes). Suggestions are offered forheuristics that can be used to facilitate the perception of conceptual relations in these graphs. It is argued that appropriate conceptual graphs can help researchers and theorists communicate the “big picture” relevant to their ideas, can help educators more effectively communicate with students, and may help clinical psychologists communicate their ideas to clients better.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Anderson, J. R. (1983).The architecture of cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Anderson, J. R. (1991).Cognitive psychology and its implications. New York: W. H. Freeman.
Atkinson, R. C., &Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In K. Spence & J. Spence (Eds.),The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 2, pp. 89–195). NY: Academic Press.
Atkinson, R. L., Atkinson, R. C., Smith, E. E., &.Bem, D. J. (1990).Introduction to psychology. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Baddeley, A. D. (1986).Working memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bohm, C, &Jocopini, G. (1966, May). Flow diagrams, Turing machines, and languages with only two formation rules.Communications of the ACM, 366–371.
Boring, E. G., Langfeld, H. S., &Weld, H. P. (1939).Introduction to psychology. New York: Wiley.
Bower, G. H., Clark, M. C., Lesgold, A. M., &Winzenz, D. (1969). Hierarchical retrieval schemes in recall of categorical word lists.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,8, 323–343.
Buck, R. (1988).Human motivation and emotion. New York: Wiley.
Castellan, N. J., Jr. (1991). Computers and computing in psychology: Twenty years of progress and still a bright future.Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers,23, 106–108.
Collins, A. M., &Loftus, E. F. (1975). A spreading activation theory of semantic processing.Psychological Review,82, 407–428.
Crooks, R. L., &Stein, J. (1991).Psychology science: Behavior and life. Forth Worth: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Dember, W. N., &Jenkins, J. J. (1970).General psychology: Modeling behavior and experience. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Gleitman, H. (1992).Basic psychology. New York: Norton.
Glenberg, A. M., &McDaniel, M. A. (1992). Mental models, pictures, and text: Integration of spatial and verbal information.Memory & Cognition,20, 458–460.
Goldstine, H. H., &von Neumann, J. (1947).Planning and coding problems for an electronic computing instrument (Vols. 1–3). New York: van Nostrand.
Guilford, J. P. (1939).General psychology. New York: van Nostrand.
Guri-Rozenblit, S. (1988). The interrelations between diagrammatic representations and verbal explanations in learning from social science.Instructional Science,17, 219–234.
Heine, S., &Rohr, G. (1986). Human-computer interaction (HCl): A problem of cognitive ergonomics. In H. P. Willumeit (Ed.),Human decision making and manual control (pp. 115–124). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Kendler, H. H. (1968).Basic psychology. New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts.
Lambiotte, J. G., Dansereau, D. F., Cross, D. R., &Reynolds, S. B. (1989). Multirelational semantic maps.Educational Psychology Review,1, 331–367.
Larkin, L. H., &Simon, H. A. (1987). Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words.Cognitive Science,11, 65–99.
Lewin, K. (1938).The conceptual representation and the measurement of psychological forces. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Lewinsohn, P. (1974). A behavioral approach to depression. In R. Friedman & M. Katz (Eds.),The psychology of depression: Contemporary theory and research (pp. 157–186). Washington, DC: Winston/Wiley.
Loftus, G. R. (1985). Johannes Kepler’s computer simulation of the universe: Some remarks about theory in psychology.Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers,17, 149–156.
Loftus, G. R. (1991). Postdictions of 20-year predictions about the state of computer technology in psychology (and one or two other matters).Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers,23, 112–113.
Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation.Psychological Review,50, 370–396.
McKeachie, W. J., &Doyle, C. L. (1970).Psychology. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Morgan, C. T. (1956).Introduction to psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Myers, D. G. (1992).Psychology. New York: Worth.
Rathus, S. A. (1990).Psychology. Orlando, FL: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Shiffrin, R. M., &Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: n. Perceptual learning, automatic attending, and a general theory.Psychological Review,84, 127–190.
Squire, L. R. (1992). Memory and the hippocampus: A synthesis from findings with rats, monkeys, and humans.Psychological Review,99, 195–231.
Tweedie, L., &Barnard, P. (1992). The interactive talk: A new tool for presenting complex theory.Psychology Software News,3, 43–45.
Wickens, D. D., &Meyer, D. R. (1955).Psychology. New York: Dryden.
Winn, W. (1988).Journal of Research in Science Teaching,25, 375–386.
van der Maas, H. L. J., &Molenaar, P. C. M. (1992). Stagewise cognitive development: An application of catastrophe theory.Psychological Review,99, 399–417.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
I would like to thank my wife, Leah Ruth-Butler, who provided insights and encouragement as I worked on this project. I would also like to thank several colleagues at Ball State who provided feedback on various ideas presented in this paper, as well as some of the characteristics of the graphics: Carl Summers, William Clark, and Paul Biner. Thanks also to the anonymous individual at the SCIP conference who recommended that I refer to the last type of conceptual graphic as Euler graphs, not Venn diagrams.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Butler, D.L. Graphics in psychology: Pictures, data, and especially concepts. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers 25, 81–92 (1993). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204481
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204481