Sarah Cho, Sheryl L Rifas-Shiman, Soren Harnois-Leblanc, Izzuddin M Aris, Emily Oken, Marie-France Hivert
Associations of Abnormal Maternal Glucose Regulation in Pregnancy with Offspring Adiposity, Insulin Resistance, and Adipokine Markers during Childhood and Adolescence
The Journal of pediatrics
graphical representation formats eg icon arrays shown lead better understanding benefits risks treatments compared numbers investigate cognitive processes underlying effects format understanding much cognitive effort required process numerical graphical representations people process inconsistent representations numeracy graph literacy affect information processing preregistered betweenparticipants experiment 665 participants answered questions relative frequencies benefits side effects 6 medications first manipulated whether medical information represented numerically graphically icon arrays inconsistently numerically 3 medications graphically 3 second examine cognitive effort manipulated whether time pressure additional intervention condition participants translated graphical information numerical information answering questions also assessed numeracy graph literacy processing icon arrays strongly affected time pressure processing numbers suggesting graphical formats required cognitive effort understanding lower information represented inconsistently v consistently preceding intervention decisions based inconsistent representations biased toward graphically represented options people higher numeracy processed quantitative information efficiently people lower numeracy graph literacy related processing efficiency study conducted nonpatient sample medical information hypothetical although graphical v numerical formats previously found lead better understanding may require cognitive effort therefore goal risk communication may play important role choosing communicate medical information article investigates cognitive processes underlying effects representation format understanding statistical information individual differences thereinprocessing icon arrays required cognitive effort processing numbers didwhen information represented inconsistently ie partly numerically partly graphically understanding lower consistent representation decisions biased toward graphically represented optionspeople higher numeracy processed quantitative information efficiently people lower numeracy