Once upon a Spacetime: Visual Storytelling in Cognitive and Geotemporal Information Spaces

Stories are an essential mode, not only of human communication—but also of thinking. This paper reflects on the internalization of stories from a cognitive perspective and outlines a visualization framework for supporting the analysis of narrative geotemporal data. We discuss the strengths and limitations of standard techniques for representing spatiotemporal data (coordinated views, animation or slideshow, layer superimposition, juxtaposition, and space-time cube representation) and think about their effects on mental representations of a story. Many current visualization systems offer multiple views and allow the user to investigate different aspects of a story. From a cognitive point of view, it is important to assist users in reconnecting these multiple perspectives into a coherent picture—e.g., by utilizing coherence techniques like seamless transitions. A case study involving visualizing biographical narratives illustrates how the design of advanced visualization systems can be cognitively and conceptually grounded to support the construction of an integrated internal representation.