March 28, 2017

Guess The Correlation: A Game About Data Perception

“Guess the Correlation” is a human-based computation game that, while mildly entertaining, its main focus is on collecting information about how people perceive correlated data in scatterplots. The game asks players to guess how correlated two variables in a scatterplot are using the Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC). The more accurate the guess, the better.

The PCC measures the linear correlation between two variables, X and Y, bounded by the values of +1 and -1. A positive linear correlation has a positive value, a negative linear correlation has a negative value, while 0 corresponds to data with no linear correlation (thanks, Wikipedia!).

The rules of the game are simple: if the player guesses within 0.05 of the true correlation they receive an extra life and 5 coins; if the player is within 0.10 of the true correlation they receive 1 coin; if they guess within over 0.10  they lose a life. Because the game’s main goal is to analyze data about correlation perception, the more people play, the more data is generated.

Every time a player guesses a correlation, the date, time, IP address, and data is automatically gathered and stored. The information collected is evaluated for statistical purposes and kept completely anonymous. If you want to help expand the stats, check out the game here.

Source: Visual News