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Usability & InteractionMember ingredient

Curse of Knowledge

What you already know can make it difficult to estimate what another person knows, notices or can do without that knowledge.

Public evidence overview

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Checked source previewAcademic paper

The Curse of Knowledge in Visual Data Communication

Research-assisted source review

What it supports
Informed viewers were more likely to see the relevant pattern and overpredicted whether naive viewers would see it, demonstrating a knowledge-related communication gap in a visual task.
Where it may not transfer
Selected charts and explanatory backstories do not represent every data display or audience. The finding supports testing a chart with its actual readers, not removing context, annotation or statistical detail by default.
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