Evaluating the Importance of Text for Understanding Biomedical Figures
Author Information
Author(s): Yu Hong, Agarwal Shashank, Johnston Mark, Cohen Aaron
Primary Institution: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Hypothesis
Are other associated texts important for understanding the meaning of figures in biomedical articles?
Conclusion
Associated text beyond the figure legend is crucial for biomedical scientists to fully understand figures in research articles.
Supporting Evidence
- Figure comprehension increased significantly with more associated text.
- Biomedical researchers missed 39-68% of information with only figure legends.
- Full-text access improved figure comprehension to 86-97%.
Takeaway
Scientists need more than just figure captions to understand research figures; they also need titles, abstracts, and full texts.
Methodology
Twenty subjects evaluated three figure-text combinations using a Likert scale to assess comprehension.
Potential Biases
Potential bias due to the sequential evaluation of figure-text combinations.
Limitations
The study design may introduce bias as subjects were exposed to figures incrementally.
Participant Demographics
Subjects were bench biomedical scientists, including PhD candidates and post-docs.
Statistical Information
P-Value
p ≤ 0.0001
Statistical Significance
p<0.001
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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