The Effects of 3D Imagery on Managerial Data Interpretation

The new technology of computer graphics makes it possible to create images on the screen that literally appear to pop out into the room. This is accomplished by creating separate images for the left and right eye and filtering them so that each eye receives the appropriate image. In the context of a scattergram, the binocular disparity information is interpreted by the brain as the z axis of a three dimensional x-y-z scattergram. In this article a convenient anaglyph method of accomplishing this on a standard IBM PC is presented. Also, a multi-color method using polarized projection is described and tested. The effectiveness of stereoscopic presentations is investigated within the context of managerial decision-making problems. When used to present continuous data in an x-y-z scattergram, the stereoscopic presentation resulted in greater accuracy and faster answers. However, when used with 3-D block diagrams to present semi-discrete data of the type usually presented by crosstab tables, the technique was less successful than a conventional crosstab presentation.