The ecological approach to text visualization

This article presents both theoretical and technical bases on which to buil d a "science of text visualization." These conceptually produce "the ecolog ical approach," which is rooted in ecological and evolutionary psychology. The basic idea is that humans are genetically selected from their species h istory to perceptually interpret certain informational aspects of natural e nvironments. If information from text documents is visually spatialized in a manner conformal with these predilections, its meaningful interpretation to the user of a text visualization system becomes relatively intuitive and accurate. The SPIRE text visualization system, which images information fr om free text documents as natural terrains, serves as an example of the "ec ological approach" in its visual metaphor, its text analysis, and its spati alizing procedures.