Risk perception evaluation of epidemic maps using event-related potentials

ABSTRACT

Epidemic maps, by incorporating outbreak characteristics and visually presenting the data, have become the primary means for the public to grasp spatiotemporal risk insights. This study aims to provide design strategies to enhance the readability and risk perception effectiveness of epidemic maps, optimizing their visual design to improve information acquisition efficiency and risk perception efficacy. Employing a synthesis of event-related potentials and questionnaires, we integrate participants’ subjective perceptions for six epidemic map types with EEG metrics, probing the cognitive underpinnings as they engage with diverse symbol and risk categorizations. The results reveal significant differences in participants’ subjective risk perception scores across the six types of epidemic maps, with notable variances in the amplitude and latency of P200 and P300 components triggered by these different maps. The above findings indicate: (1) Point-symbol epidemic maps exhibit a higher arousal level, more effectively capturing individual attention; (2) Area-symbol characteristics in low-risk contexts aid in enhancing information retrieval efficiency; (3) High-level risk information garners more attentional resources from individuals.

KEYWORDS:

• Epidemic map
• ERPs
• risk level
• risk perception
• symbol type

Acknowledgments

Yang would like to thank the financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant No. 42171438]. Fang would like to thank the financial supports from the Major Project of the National Social Science Fund (NSSF) of China “Theoretical and Practical Innovations for Evaluation Systems of Art Theory” [Project No. 21ZD11] and the Key Research and Development Project of Department of Science and Technology of Hubei [No. 2021BAA044].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support this study are available on Figshare at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24428185.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2024.2342369

Additional information

Funding

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [42171438] and the Major Project of the National Social Science Fund (NSSF) of China “Theoretical and Practical Innovations for Evaluation Systems of Art Theory” [Project No. 21ZD11] and the Key Research and Development Project of Department of Science and Technology of Hubei [No. 2021BAA044].