Making Numbers Meaningful, Renewal

Much of modern life depends on people's ability to comprehend and make decisions based on numerical information. However, many people struggle with innumeracy, the numerical equivalent to illiteracy. This comes at immense societal costs as it hampers people's understanding of critical issues such as climate change or the spread of pandemics.
This project addresses innumeracy by improving how numerical information is communicated. It bridges previously fragmented fields such as numerical cognition, data visualization, judgment and decision making, and linguistics to provide a big picture view on how different modalities—numbers, language, graphs, gestures—interact in communicating numerical information. Multimodal corpus analysis, the automated analysis of naturally occurring language, is used to develop a numerical profile of the English language and nonverbal means of communicating quantities. Experiments are used to test the impact of different communicative strategies and modalities on numerical understanding and decision making in numerical contexts.
The research is used to create teaching and learning materials for data analysts in academic and non-academic sectors: how can numerical information be communicated in a way that is both transparent and persuasive? To achieve this, the project will develop a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) on communicating data for professionals and academics and a popular science book that provides evidence-based guidelines for numerical communication.
This project uniquely combines theoretical innovation with practical solutions, making it a vital contribution to improving numerical literacy and communication in an increasingly data-driven world.