Beyond Numbers: Creating Analogies to Enhance Data Comprehension and Communication with Generative AI

Unfamiliar measurements usually hinder readers from grasping the scale of the numerical data, understanding the content, and feeling engaged with the context. To enhance data comprehension and communication, we leverage analogies to bridge the gap between abstract data and familiar measurements. In this work, we first conduct semi-structured interviews with design experts to identify design problems and summarize design considerations. Then, we collect an analogy dataset of 138 cases from various online sources. Based on the collected dataset, we characterize a design space for creating data analogies. Next, we build a prototype system, AnalogyMate, that automatically suggests data analogies, their corresponding design solutions, and generated visual representations powered by generative AI. The study results show the usefulness of AnalogyMate in aiding the creation process of data analogies and the effectiveness of data analogy in enhancing data comprehension and communication

The Real Rules of Search Interpretations

The Supreme Court tells us that a Fourth Amendment “search” is a matter of “reasonable expectations of privacy.” Scholars meanwhile debate “search” on the axes of value, doctrine, institutionalism, interpretation, and judicial politics. Yet neither prevailing judicial doctrine nor normative academic discourse has had much impact on the Court’s actual “search” interpretations. This article suggests that this static between “paper” rules and “real” rules (and, more generally, normative prescriptions and judicial decisionmaking) is a function of a deep constraint on the judiciary’s capacity to form “search” doctrine in free accordance with evolving juridical and policy norms. This constraint is one that I call the “atomic code.” The atomic code has three properties. First, justices evaluate each “search” issue without regard for coherence across the spectrum of “search” issues. In effect, the “search doctrine” is simply an “aggregation of search ‘atoms.’” A second property of the atomic code is that justices attribute content to new search atoms through analogies to old search atoms. While initially every search atom is dormant, over time a justice, either informally or through adjudication, will gradually attribute content—“search” or “non-search”—to her atoms by drawing from the content of analogous search atoms. By this account, the holding in Olmstead v. United States reflects nothing grander than the endorsement by five justices of an analogy between wiretapping and visual surveillance from a public vantage point. The third property of the atomic code is that a justice will not reassess an atom’s content once she has made her initial attribution. One might think of this as stare decisis writ small: a justice (but not necessarily the Court) will decide like cases alike. And so the overturning of “search” precedent is not the result of a majority’s new attribution of content to their search atoms, but, more accurately, a new majority of initial attributions. I should emphasize at the outset that the atomic code is not simply the result of a vague doctrinal test, suboptimal or inaccessible empirical data on “privacy expectations,” or judicial politics. Rather, the code’s roots run deeper. It is in large part attributable to two factors. One is the concreteness of the term “search.” The other is the justices’ preference for a calibrated retroactivity of criminal procedure rules. These two factors, more than any others, have caused justices to treat the “search” doctrine as atomistic, to attribute content through analogical reasoning, and to fix content upon attribution

Are abstract concepts like dinosaur feathers? Objectification as a conceptual tool: evidence from language and gesture of English and Polish native speakers

Studies based on the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999) usually identify conceptual metaphors by analysing linguistic expressions and creating a post hoc interpretation of the findings. This method has been questioned for a variety of reasons, including its circularity (Müller, 2008), lack of falsifiability (Vervaeke & Kennedy, 1996, 2004), and lack of predictive power (Ritchie, 2003). It has been argued that CTM requires additional constraints to improve its applicability for empirical research (Gibbs, 2011; Ritchie, 2003). This paper sets out to propose additional methodological structure to CTM, a theory of conceptual metaphor in which much of abstract thought is generated by metaphorical mapping from embodied experience (Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez & Pérez Hernández, 2011). Introducing Objectification Theory defined by Szwedek (2002, 2007, 2011) ameliorates a number of methodological issues in CTM. First, the embodiment claim of CTM in its current form cannot be empirically proven incorrect (Vervaeke & Kennedy, 2004) as any mapping within it is possible (although only some actually happen). Objectification introduces pre-metaphorical structure of the kind suggested by Glucksberg (2001), constraining source and target domain selection, predicting which mappings are more likely to happen. Second, while many claim that metaphors trace back to a literal concept based on embodied physical experience (Gibbs, Costa Lima, & Francozo, 2004), it is unclear what criteria are used to define „physical”. Metaphorical domains are often described using the terms „abstract” and „concrete”, Objectification proposes objective criteria for deciding whether a concept is experientially grounded. Finally, Objectification provides grounds for introducing a hierarchical framework for metaphor typology, preventing post-hoc addition of metaphor types if and when suitable for the explanation of a phenomenon; thus increasing the consistency of the CTM framework, both internally and with other cognitive science disciplines. This thesis focuses on providing evidence for Objectification Theory and identifying its applications in metaphor and gesture research

Are abstract concepts like dinosaur feathers?

Ewolucja ludzkiego układu nerwowego pozwoliła nam na wykonywanie niezwykle skomplikowanych czynności takich jak obliczenia matematyczne, analizy gospodarcze czy choćby napisanie tej książki. Mimo to wciąż nie jesteśmy pewni jak i dlaczego człowiek nabył zdolność abstrakcyjnego myślenia. Jedna z teorii sugeruje, że myślenie abstrakcyjne i konkretne opierają się na tym samym mechanizmie: doświadczeniu. Według tej teorii, nazwanej teorią ucieleśnionego poznania, świat rozumiemy dzięki doświadczeniom fizycznym. Kiedy opisujemy jakiś argument jako "chwiejny" albo pogląd jako "bezpodstawny" to korzystamy z doświadczeń, które zdobyliśmy bawiąc się kolckami jako dzieci. W tej książce zadaję postawione przez psychologa Daniela Casasanto pytanie: „czy pojęcia abstrakcyjne są jak pióra dinozaurów”. Jakie procesy ewolucyjne doprowadziły do tego, że jesteśmy w stanie opisać nawet bardzo abstrakcyjne zagadnienia w odniesieniu do konkretnych zjawisk? Przedstawiając wyniki badań nad mową i gestem osób widzących, słabowidzących oraz niewidomych, staram się pokazać, że podstawy zrozumienia wielu pojęć abstrakcyjnych szukać można w geście