Just venting here, although it could well be used as an example of how
not to present information graphically.
The winner is:
Flor, H. et al (1995). Phantom-limb pain as a perceptual correlate of
cortical reorganization following arm amputation. Nature, 375, 482--
They present a remarkable finding of a correlation of r = 0.93 between
cortical reorganization and amount of phantom limb pain. I'm reviewing
this for a lecture this afternoon. But that's not the point here.
Consider their tiny Figure 2, in which the legend takes up more space
than the graph. Picture it. A three-dimensional graph, with two
parallel rows of mountains (26 peaks in all), each ascending higher
and higher. Imagine how long it took me to figure out what they were
trying to show.
It's actually a scatterplot of pain against reorganization. I
re-plotted it (with difficulty, because it's not easy to pick off the
values on a tiny 3-dimensional plot) and ended up with a simple graph
with r = 0.87. No mountains.
Give someone a 3-dimensional graph programme and he'll find a way to
use it. But where were the referees on this one? And in _Nature_,
of all places.
-Stephen
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
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