Behaviour & Information Technology

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Story-telling maps generated from semantic

representations of events

Laura Tateosian, Michelle Glatz & Makiko Shukunobe

To cite this article: Laura Tateosian, Michelle Glatz & Makiko Shukunobe (2020) Story-telling
maps generated from semantic representations of events, Behaviour & Information Technology,
39:4, 391-413, DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2019.1569162

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2019.1569162

Published online: 08 Feb 2019.

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BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
2020, VOL. 39, NO. 4, 391–413
https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2019.1569162

Story-telling maps generated from semantic representations of events

Laura Tateosian, Michelle Glatz and Makiko Shukunobe
Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Narratives enable readers to assimilate disparate facts. Accompanying maps can make the Received 28 May 2018
narratives even more accessible. As work in computer science has begun to generate stories Accepted 30 December 2018
from low-level event/activity data, there is a need for systems that complement these tools to
KEYWORDS
generate maps illustrating spatial components of these stories. While traditional maps display Visualisation; maps; user
static spatial relationships, story maps need to not only dynamically display relationships based study
on the flow of the story but also display character perceptions and intentions. In this work, we
study cartographic illustrations of historical battles to design a map generation system for
reports produced from a multiplayer battle game log. We then create a story and ask viewers to
describe mapped events and rate their own descriptions relative to intended interpretations.
Some viewers received training prior to seeing the story, which was shown to be effective,
though training may have been unnecessary for certain map types. Self-rating correlated highly
with expert ratings, revealing an efficient proxy for expert analysis of map interpretability, a
shortcut for determining if training is needed for story-telling maps or other novel visualisation
techniques. The study’s semantic questions and feedback solicitation demonstrate a process for
identifying user-centric improvements to story-telling map design.

1. Introduction
Narratives, such as news articles, history books, and
blogs, enable us to assimilate disparate facts. Maps,
though not always included with the narratives, can
greatly improve comprehension of real-world or fictional
storylines. Stories have been recognised as a powerful
device to support and enable reflection and imagination.
The narrative has a privileged status in the cognitive sys-
tem. People read stories twice as fast as information texts
and recall rates are almost twice as high for story content
(Green, Strange, and Brock 2003). Likewise, maps are a
powerful shorthand for anchoring story actions in
space, providing the important context of geographic
location. Political alliances, terrain impediments, and
proximity are often key story elements. Maps can har-
ness the human visual system to efficiently convey
location, movement, and spatial relationships and per-
haps even to portray spatial notions, such as intended
movements and beliefs about the spatial world state.
Minard’s custom visualisation which masterfully con-
veys the story of Napoleon’s march on Russia is a well-
known example of a story-telling map (Minard 1862).
A student of the Napoleonic Wars might read a book
to learn the details, but the map itself concisely captures
the key events of this failed campaign in a single stylised
map. The partnership between maps and stories is
natural, as discussed in the recent Cartography Journal
special issue on ‘Cartography and Narratives’ (Caquard
and Cartwright 2014) and the book, ‘Literary Mapping
in the Digital Age’ (Cooper, Donaldson, and Murrieta-
Flores 2016). A human-centric visualisation approach
should leverage this relationship (Huang 2014).
Typically, maps that illustrate stories are created by a
specialist, a cartographer, graphic designer, or GIS tech-
nician. The map designer needs to read the story and
interpret the events to be mapped. This process is
time-consuming and requires special knowledge of map-
ping conventions and visualisation software. In the past,
this has limited the number of maps that can be provided
with stories. Advances in the ability to automatically
extract spatial information from stories open new possi-
bilities for more plentiful illustration with automatically
generated maps.
In light of the power of a narrative, artificial intelli-
gence researchers are developing tools that create seman-
tic story representations from human or computer
generated inputs (Meehan 1976; Elson and McKeown
2007; Martens et al. 2014; Eger, Barot, and Young
2015). Further, narrative discourse generation systems
take the semantic story representations and present nar-
ratives to the audience via maps, text, film, or interactive
experiences (Barot et al. 2017; Young et al. 2013; Rishes

CONTACT Laura Tateosian lgtateos@ncsu.edu Center for Geospatial Analytics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
392 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.
et al. 2013; Cheong and Young 2015; O’Neill and Riedl
2014). At the same time, natural language processing is
evolving to enable automatic extraction of spatial events
from stories authored by humans (Li et al. 2006; Kord-
jamshidi, Otterlo, and Moens 2011). Either of these
approaches can formulate spatial story events as seman-
tic representations, systematic characterisations of
spatial events with a predefined format that can be pro-
cessed programmatically. These capabilities present the
opportunity to build applications that can generate
maps to illustrate spatial story components.
This technology will have numerous applications and
may improve geographic literacy by mapping more of
the spatial events. For example, electronic textbooks on
world cultures or history will be abundantly illustrated
with on-demand maps. Online news sources will be
able to display or hide maps and set the level of detail
based on a reader’s location. Another compelling appli-
cation is generating maps as discourse elements in auto-
matically generated multi-media reports for intelligence
analysts (Hossain et al. 2012), where the wreckage is dis-
covered, and the relative positions of geopolitical borders
and contested territories would likely play a central role
in analysing this story. Pertinent automatically generated
maps to accompany such a story would be invaluable
time savers to augment analyst proficiency and expert
knowledge of various regions and story characters.
In this work, we explore some fundamental questions
about generating maps to accompany stories. First, what
work has been completed thus far in story-telling map
generation? Section 2 describes efforts to identify pictur-
able story elements and select apt visual representations.
A few of these efforts focused on generating maps to rep-
resent the routes taken by characters in the stories and
some generate maps for way-finding, but these works
rarely attempt to map additional spatial story elements.
This brings us to the second question: what kinds of
story elements can be visualised with a map? Recent
work by Mocnik and Fairbairn explored this question in
depth (Mocnik and Fairbairn 2018). They compare the
strengths of maps and texts for story-telling. Conven-
tional maps effectively display location, spatial relation-
ships, movements or itineraries, and spatial phenomena,
such as weather patterns or disease spread. Stories, how-
ever, may include additional spatial information. Charac-
ters may have local interactions that explain their
movements. They may make plans to move or have beliefs
about the positions of others in a story. These events can
help to explain character behaviours. How to increase the
capabilities of maps to express these kinds of ideas is an
open question (Mocnik and Fairbairn 2018). Though little
work has yet been done on automatically illustrating
stories with maps, story-telling maps designed by expert
map-makers provide rich examples of how maps can be
used to enhance stories. To leverage this resource, we
selected a story illustrated with hundreds of maps and
conducted a detailed review. In Section 3, ‘Examining a
story told with maps’, discusses the mappable story
elements identified through this study and how they
were displayed. We used this information to guide our
implementation of a map generator, described in Section
4. Some elements, such as character position and move-
ment, were concrete and commonly portrayed in maps.
Others such as the spatial intentions or beliefs of charac-
ters were more abstract. We included both concrete and
abstract visualisation capabilities in our implementation.
This section also introduces a battle game application we
used to test our maps.
With examples of our programmatically generated
maps in hand, we are able to ask questions about effec-
tiveness. Would viewers be able to interpret our maps
as intended? Would they need training to do so?
Would a small amount of training suffice? Furthermore,
could viewers comprehend a story told with these maps?
To address these questions, we designed and conducted a
user study. Through Amazon Mechanical Turk, we asked
participants to peruse a story told mainly with maps and
respond to questions about the story. Some participants
were provided with training in which they viewed and
described example maps before exposure to the story.
After they entered descriptions, these participants were
asked to rate their own response relative to the intended
interpretation. The study design and results, detailed in
Section 5, offer several useful insights. First, our efficient
approach to map training was effective overall. Second,
we note that training may be helpful for certain map
types, but may not be needed for other types. Third,
our analysis indicates that self-evaluation of map
interpretations may be used in lieu of expert grading, a
particularly impactful result as this technique could
also be applied to other forms of information visualisa-
tion. A fourth observation came from reading the story
map descriptions, which were often colourful and ani-
mated, potentially reflecting the capacity of programma-
tically generated maps to convey the momentum of a
story and bring it to life for viewers. The study discussion
is followed by our conclusions in Section 6.
2. Related work
To learn how others have approached related challenges,
we surveyed work in automatic narrative illustration
with imagery and other media, automatic generation of
stand-alone maps, and semi-automatic generation of

maps to accompany stories. To inform our map design
and to determine approaches for evaluating them, we
also reviewed studies of comprehension and learning
from texts accompanied by maps.
2.1. Automatic narrative illustration and map
generation
Various approaches have been developed for automati-
cally generating maps for specific optimisation or way-
finding applications. Domingo et al. generated street
maps for electricity distribution in cities (2011). Since
power lines follow street layouts in cities, the system
can use the location of streets and power company cus-
tomer homes to plan an optimal layout for a power net-
work. A destination map generator, by Kopf et al., took
a destination address and an area of interest, selected a
route and a set of essential roads to display and label
with a layout that ensures that all selected roads and
labels are visible (Kopf et al. 2010). The tourist map
generator, by Grabler et al., again used simplification
techniques to omit information not relevant to a tour-
ist, but it also automatically added information by
selecting important orienting landmarks to include
on the map (Grabler et al. 2008). These systems took
a set of input features and use network analysis, gener-
alisation techniques, and layout algorithms to create
maps that distill the pertinent information. Of course,
remote sensing devices along with image processing
are also automatic (or assisted) map generators for
Earth observation. On a smaller scale, robots have
been programmed to sense indoor environments to
generate maps for their own use in navigating these
spaces (Althaus and Christensen 2003) and omnidirec-
tional images from mobile devices have been used to
generate 2.5D indoor maps (Pintore et al. 2016). Our
work focuses on generating maps for story-telling
rather than way-finding.
Related work has linked maps and narratives, both in
the sense of generating a map from a story and telling a
story with a map. Recently, human geographers and car-
tographers have developed semi-automated approaches
to visualise narratives, in the form of oral histories, as
spatiotemporal data. Kwan and Ding created ‘geo-narra-
tives’, a framework that generates 3D maps, using quali-
tative analysis of first-person accounts and text analysis
algorithms to identify key features to display on the
map (Kwan and Ding 2008). The maps plotted personal
travel paths with a space-time cube (STC) approach. A
Muslim U.S. resident described her daily movements
around New York City before and after the September
11 attacks (Kwan 2008). Interestingly, human emotions
were also encoded; She described her feelings of security
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 393
or fear in relation to her movements. STC paths were
coloured based on a fear-safety spectrum.
There has also been interest in the artificial intelli-
gence community in developing systems to extract
information from narratives using NLP to parse
unstructured text and automatically illustrate narratives
with maps or other media, such as 3D digital scenes,
photographs, and movies. Moncla et al. extracted
place names and motion expressions from itinerary
descriptions and used minimum spanning tree algor-
ithms to generated maps of trail hikes (Moncla, Gaio,
and Mustiere 2014). Others are extracting information
from news articles and visualising the themes within an
article, finding connections between articles, or weaving
stories from collections of articles (Camacho Barranco,
Boedihardjo, and Hossain 2017; Shahaf and Guestrin
2010; Shahaf, Guestrin, and Horvitz 2013). In contrast,
our work assumes a semantic representation of a story
has already been derived and focuses on generating
maps to accompany scenes in a story, as opposed to
creating an itinerary map to summarise movement.
In work related to one of our target applications, Eccles
et al. developed a system for intelligence analysts to
interactively explore the spatial and temporal trajectory
of storylines within an STC framework (Eccles et al.
2008). Though STC is a popular approach for display-
ing itineraries, we opted for two-dimensional views
without explicit temporal information for their relative
simplicity and suitability for illustrating a variety of
spatial story elements.
Animations and imagery have been selected to
accompany various forms of narrative. In early work,
Kahn developed animated movies from incomplete,
vague descriptions of films (Kahn 1979). More recently,
WordsEye analysed unstructured text and extracted a
semantic representation, from which it rendered a 3D
scene with computer graphics libraries (Coyne and
Sproat 2001). WordsEye used cartoon-style bubbles to
express characters’ thoughts, an approach that we
adopted to visualise mappable thoughts. The Story Pic-
turing Engine by Joshi et al. selected images from an
annotated image database to illustrate narratives (Joshi,
Wang, and Li 2006). Jiang et al. used a similar approach
to suggest imagery for instant message chats (Jiang, Liu,
and Lu 2016).
2.2. Retention and comprehension of text
accompanied by maps
Much research has been conducted over the last half-
century to study how maps are processed and used to
help with recall and comprehension of related text. In
studies testing learning when maps and related text
394 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.

are presented separately (Verdi et al. 1997; Rittschof 3. Examining a story told with maps
et al. 1994), students learned more features from
Mapmakers encode information and map readers
maps and facts from the text when the map was
decode embedded information. To enable successful
studied before the text. This result is explained by the
decoding, the mapmaker needs to understand common
Kulhavy conjoint retention model (Kulhavy, Lee, and
conventions familiar to readers as well as the automatic
Caterino 1985) and the Paivio dual coding model
processing innate to human visual perception. To use
(Paivio 1990), which state that when a person views a
maps for story-telling, map-makers need to identify
map it is stored as an intact image in spatial memory;
which story elements should be mapped, and how to rep-
whereas, text is stored sequentially in verbal mem-
resent these scenes. Maps supporting narrative are found
ory. The intact map image can be retrieved from non-
in various types of books, news articles, and journals. To
verbal memory to reinforce textual information as it is
gain a better understanding of story-telling with maps,
being read which increases the ability to later recall it.
we turned to the genre of military history books, which
Although several studies found that including maps
rely heavily on maps to convey important events in the
with text did not result in any significant difference in
stories they tell. We surveyed books on several major his-
spatial learning versus reading the text alone (Ramirez
torical conflicts (The Crusades, the Mongolian Cam-
and Gilmartin 1996; Davis 1971), when learners received
paigns, the Napoleonic Wars, and the U.S. Civil War)
thorough training in using maps to record both spatial
(Nicolle 2008; Setton and Baldwin 2006; Benson 1990;
and event information, they scored significantly higher
Esposito and Elting 1999; Detweiler and Reisch 2013;
on recall tests of textual material than those receiving
Sheehan-Dean 2009). The maps in these books use
no training (Scevak, Moore, and Kirby 1993). This
glyphs, labels, arrows, colour, and texture to display fea-
work motivated our interest in the level of training
tures such as castles, campaign leader positions and
appropriate for interpreting maps generated by our
movements, allegiance, and territory gained. Three of
system.
the books come closer to the intended use for our
Verdi et al. found that learning factual information
maps in that they have a high map to text ratio, employ-
from instructional text can be greatly improved when
ing a double-spread page layout with a text passage on
it is accompanied by maps if the structure and features
the left leaf and a map on the right leaf of each page (Det-
of the maps are appropriately designed (Verdi and Kul-
weiler and Reisch 2013; Esposito and Elting 1999; Shee-
havy 2002). Studies have shown that participants recall
han-Dean 2009). Of these three the U.S. Civil War
significantly more information when viewing an intact
history book ‘Gettysburg: The Story of the Battle with
map rather than a segmented map (Rittschof et al.
Maps’ was of particular interest for its deliberate focus
1994) and when references to spatially close map fea-
on story-telling with maps and the use of insert maps
tures are clustered together within the text instead of
in a way our maps are designed to be used to highlight
scattered throughout it (Schreiber et al. 2002). Johnson
mappable action. The left pages embed insert maps
concluded that subjects were substantially better able to
between paragraphs and in the margins to highlight
recall both map and text information when viewing
spatial story events (Detweiler and Reisch 2013). The
maps with features that are labelled and utilise distinc-
insert maps generally consist of small maps cropped
tive symbols for the features they represent, for
from the right page or isolated features from the right
example, an icon image versus a simple dot marker
page map. Like the maps that we aim to generate, these
(Johnson, Stamm, and Verdi 2000). For this reason,
insert maps succinctly convey and highlight key events
we incorporated the capability to use icon images of
in the story.
story characters when they are available. Other research
Far from being automatically generated, the insert
has found that recall of map and related text increases
maps were individually designed by domain experts (his-
when features are on the map rather than listed next to
torians) with visual representation experts (a cartogra-
it (Kulhavy et al. 1993; Schwartz and Kulhavy 1981),
pher and an artist) and we aimed to learn from the
are located along internal lines, such as roads or rivers
authors’ choices. To determine the types of story
(Stamm, Johnson, and Verdi 1999), or along the edges
elements conveyed and the visual features employed,
of the map (Rossano and Morrison 1996; Verdi et al.
we inspected map inserts throughout the book. We
2001). Some of these advantageous design features pre-
identified maps that convey unique information and,
sent challenges that are outside the scope of the current
for these maps, studied each graphical primitive, the
work. For example, we did not attempt to solve occlu-
visual properties that were being varied for these primi-
sion issues that can occur with an inlaid overview map
tives, and the meaning being conveyed. For example, a
or labelled map features.
graphical primitive could be a line, a rectangle, an

arrow, a label, a splat, and so forth. By visual properties,
we mean colour, size, labelling, straightness or curvature,
transparency, and so forth. These primitives and their
visual properties conveyed information such as troop
movement, gunfire, magnitude of troop units, and inten-
sity of fighting.
We also looked carefully at the usage of insert maps.
For map inserts that were uniquely used, we studied
the purpose of the insert map (why it was included in
the book, as opposed to other details from the right
leaf), how it was tied to the text, and the differences
between the insert map and the overview map on the
right page. Some inserts have additional primitives that
do not appear on the right page or primitives that appear
in that region on the right page are omitted in the insert.
For example, one map insert illustrates the text describ-
ing contradictory orders from Generals Lee and Long-
street telling Brigadier General McLaws to attack from
different directions. The insert map appears in the mar-
gin to the left of the paragraph discussing this situation.
Two green arrows and text labels are added to the insert
map to show the two proposed directions of attack.
We characterised cases of spatial story elements con-
veyed by the maps. The list of cases, along with examples
of text and map realisations conveying these elements, is
as follows:
(1) Object locations; e.g. ‘This is the Chambersburg
Pike’ / Map showing a line labelled ‘Chambersburg
Pike’. Figure 1(a)
(2) World states of predicates involving locations; e.g.
‘General Lee is at the turnpike.’ / Map showing
Lee’s icon in position. Figure 1(a)
(3) World states of predicate linked to spatial relationships;
e.g. ‘Lee and Meade are far from each other’ / Map
showing Lee and Meade icons with the dashed labelled
Mason-Dixon line separating them. Figure 1(c)
(4) Movement actions; e.g. ‘Lee moved from the turn-
pike to the hill’ / Map with a Lee icon and an
arrow tracing Lee’s path.
(5) Localised actions; e.g. ‘Birney’s brigade attacked
Barksdale’s brigade’ / Map showing the attacker
(Birney brigade icon) and target (Barksdale brigade
icon) and a connecting line with an explosion sym-
bol at the attack point. Figure 1(b)
(6) Intentions linked to spatial predicates; e.g. ‘Rebel
forces wanted to move south through Gettysburg
and seize the hills south of the town’ / Map with
semitransparent arrow for projected movement.
Figure 2(a)
(7) Beliefs linked to spatial predicates; e.g. ‘Johnston
believed the Union troops were not on the hill’ /
Two maps with eye icons and arrows with two
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 395
different world states, one showing no troops
(what Johnson believed) as in Figure 2(b), and the
other showing the brigades that were actually there
Figure 2(c).
We also found cases of temporal ordering and causal
links displayed with the maps, but to control the scope of
this work, we chose to consider only those story elements
listed above, each of which can be expressed as some
combination of locations, movements, and interactions.
Cases 6 and 7 present a challenge, as mapmakers
infrequently try to express these concepts. Though,
when maps are used for this purpose, they can power-
fully convey the import of these elements. The text realis-
ation examples are given above for 6 and 7 paraphrase
text on pages 8 and 50 of the Gettysburg book. The
page 8 map Figure 2(a) conveys the drama inherent in
the intentions of the Confederate troops to move down
through Gettysburg and claim the high ground, Culp’s
Hill and Cemetery Ridge, which is likely to have changed
the outcome of the entire Civil War. Wide tapered
arrows sweeping through Gettysburg and spanning out
south of Gettysburg convey the intention. These arrows
are green in the book. Green arrows were reserved in
this book for special purposes; The legend simply states
‘for what might have been’. Green arrows are also used
in relation to beliefs. In the page 50 map Figure 2(c)
three arrows (colored green in the book) radiate from
an eye icon (Johnston’s vantage point) to where the
Union troop lay in wait, apparently not visible to John-
ston. The folly in Johnston’s belief that those hills were
not occupied is driven home by the map. Based on the
examples we observed in this review, we determined
we would implement some representation for these
important elements and test the results in the user
study discussed in an upcoming section.
We took cues from the Gettysburg intention and
belief maps to design our representations. The first visual
attribute that we considered was a change in background
colour; The Gettysburg book used this technique to indi-
cate nightfall by dimming the lights on the scene. These
pages stand out in contrast to the daytime battle maps. In
addition, intentions and beliefs have the special charac-
teristic of constituting an alternate world state (an
intended or perceived one) and in some examples, the
book visualises both the alternate state and the true cur-
rent state. For example, to illustrate a crucial Confederate
mistake, a main map and an insert map Figure 2(c) on
the facing page contrast the believed world state with
the reality. Figure 2(b) shows the south central portion
of the main map. An eye icon radiates dashed black
arrows pointing at different angles from the triple arrows
396 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.

Figure 1. Maps conveying world states of spatial story elements: (a) displays a predicate involving location, (b) displays localised
actions, and (c) displays a predicate linked to spatial relationships (Detweiler and Reisch 2013). Images reproduced with permission
from ‘Gettysburg: The Story of the Battle with Maps’ by the Editors of Stackpole Books, all rights reserved. (a) General Lee is at the
TurnPike, (b) Birney (Union) brigade attacks a Barksdale (Confederate) brigade and (c) Lee and Meade are 25 miles apart.

Figure 2. Expressive maps: (a) Thick curved arrows shows Confederate intentions to push right through the town of Gettysburg, (b) an
eye icon with dashed arrows show Johnson’s belief that the surrounding hills are free of union troops, and (c) three arrows point to
what Johnson should have seen, several Union brigades hidden nearby (Detweiler and Reisch 2013). Images reproduced with per-
mission from ‘Gettysburg: The Story of the Battle with Maps’ by the Editors of Stackpole Books, all rights reserved. (a) Intentions,
(b) belief and (c) reality.

in Figure 2(c). The trio of arrows point to brigades that are
missing in the belief map to illustrate that Johnson’s per-
ception of the world state differed from the real state.
From this observation, we determined we would express
these two states within the same view using two side-by-
side maps. One main map would show the real current
world state, and an alternate world view map with a differ-
ent background colour would display the intention or
belief. We followed the convention commonly employed
by cartoons, a thought bubble, to portray the alternate
world view map as a thought, with a label inside the
bubble to indicate the nature of the thought (intention
or belief). With this design, we would be able to represent
various kinds of intentions or beliefs using the basic build-
ing blocks of location, movement, and interaction.
We made several additional observations that
informed our design choices:
. For the visual features chosen to represent the story
elements, the symbols are more lively and expressive
than default GIS appearance of lines, arrows and
icons. We determined we should seek methods for
using expressive symbols.
. The layout of map elements in the Gettysburg book
uses a constant extent and orientation of the battlefi-
eld on the right leaf, to keep an overview map and
north arrow in sight when viewing inserts on the
left page. We chose to include an overview map and
north arrow with each insert map.
. A legend only appears once in the book near the title
page. Readers can page back to reference it in the
paperback book. With digital maps, free from printing
costs, we are able to provide a tailored legend sidebar
for individual insert maps.
The Gettysburg book provides a rich vocabulary and
our design decisions are strongly influenced by this
source. Since the scope of our survey is limited, the list
of spatial story elements conveyed by maps is not
meant to be exhaustive, but rather a starting point for
implementing our mapping system.
4. Programmatically generating maps
In a collection of related events that constitute a story,
certain milestones stand out as more significant than
others in effectively communicating the story to an audi-
ence, while facts and occurrences that are not central to
the story outcome can be withheld. Knowing the key
events, we can also evaluate the rationale behind an
event, and speculate about the outcome of both actual
events and hypothetical scenarios. For example, a soccer
commentator often uses a chalkboard to describe tactics,
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 397
events, and ideas such as ‘what if’ and ‘intended to do…’
on a sketch of the soccer field while the match is still
ongoing. Describing the game requires spatial perception
and recognition of teams and team members. With such
contextual understanding, the commentators are able to
draw simple lines and symbols on a map summarising
the angle of attack and key actions on the playing field.
They also diagram hypothetical events that never actu-
ally happen, but could have occurred if players had
reacted differently. It is not unlike the arrows and sym-
bols used to summarise key events in a historical battle.
The sketches are not intended to precisely present actual
player movements on the field, but instead, summarise
that information for easy comprehension. Reimer
(2010) formalised this idea in terms of choremes, dia-
grams designed to communicate highly generalised geo-
graphic information. Klippel, Richter, and Hansen
(2006) demonstrated the use of choremes to abstract
wayfinding maps. Our system implements a set of chor-
emes to depict certain milestone events of a story and
facilitate a spatial understanding of these events.
4.1. Implementation
Guided by observations from our in-depth review of the
Gettysbury book, we implemented an automatic map
generation system with the Python programming
language. The system is designed to be invoked by a
story generator, which has built a database containing
semantic representations of mappable narrative
elements. The mapping system connects to the database
specified by the caller, parses the information in the data-
base, generates map content, and exports a map image,
which is returned to the story generator for insertion
in the story. Table 1 shows an example of a simple data-
base that might be generated for a battle story. Before
stepping through how the system would handle this
example, we explain a few specific techniques and struc-
tures used in our implementation.
This implementation works with two types of files:
map documents and layer files. The map document
files store map layout and pointers to data layers. We
use map document templates (blank maps with a preset
layout), modify the content, including adding base maps
and other mapped elements, and export a screen capture
of the map to generate our output. Based on our design
decisions, we created two templates for two distinct lay-
outs. The standard template would include three items: a
main map, corresponding roughly to an insert map in
the Gettysburg book, an overview map with a fixed
extent to show the contextual location of the insert
map action, and a legend (Figure 4). The augmented
template would have these three items but would also
398 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.

Table 1. Semantic representation of a hypothetical story element: ‘Union general a moves from P0 to P1 and uses canon fire to attack
and kill confederate general b, who is at P2 ’.
Action Name Team Coord From To Target TargTeam TCoord Type ActorN
move GenA Blue NA (P0x ,P0y ) (P1x ,P1y ) NIL NIL NIL S NIL
canon GenA Blue (P1x ,P1y ) NIL NIL GenB Gray (P2x ,P2y ) S NIL
kill GenA Blue (P1x ,P1y ) NIL NIL GenB Gray (P2x ,P2y ) S NIL

have an alternative world view map, so that it can be used
to map intentions or beliefs (Figure 5). An image library
resizes a semi-transparent bubble image and overlays it
on the exported alternative world map before it is
returned to the story generator.
To create expressive symbols, we use two techniques.
The first technique involves layer files containing look-
up tables of symbols associated with geometry types
(points and lines). Users can prepare files to store
specific symbols, such as character icons or interaction
symbols, to be used for an application. We use the
look-up tables to assign symbols where available, else
default GIS symbols are used (e.g. dots for points).
We recommend creating custom symbol look-up tables
for story characters, though this approach requires
some initial setup for a new application. Based on
work in psychology indicating the value of distinctive
icons (Johnson, Stamm, and Verdi 2000), the trade-
off may be worthwhile.
We used a second expressive symbol technique for
displaying linear events or interactions such as move-
ments or attacks. We determined that the default GIS
linear symbol layout was not suited for our purposes.
Consider a set of movements as a network graph. Default
GIS settings display a graph as a network of line seg-
ments and points with the segment endpoints centred
on their origin and destination points (Figure 3, first
row). By contrast, to represent movement Detweiler
et al. drew arrows that point to but do not intersect
with the destination symbol (Detweiler and Reisch
2013). In the Semiology of Graphics, Bertin indicates
that the latter technique is preferred for arrowhead read-
ability (Bertin 1983). To implement line segment offsets
(as in Figure 3, second row), we use the position of the
original edge from (x1 ,y1 ) to (x2 ,y2 ) with length L to
calculate a modified end position, (xe ,ye ), as
xe = (1 − t)x1 + tx2 (1)
ye = (1 − t)y1 + ty2 (2)
The value of t is calculated as:
cr
t =1− (3)
L
where c is the ratio of the diagonal of the map full extent to
maximum icon diameter and ρ is an offset factor. The parameter,
c, accounts for fixed icon sizes and dynamic zoom level. Analo-
gous equations are used for the start point. With distinct ρ
values, the start and end offset can differ and the move and
attack offsets can differ.
Returning to the example in Table 1, it contains the
semantic representation of the sentence: ‘Union Gen-
eral A moves from Point 0 to Point 1 and fires his
canon to attack and kill Confederate General B, who
is at Point 2’. Based on the values in the table entries,
a map template is selected (standard or augmented),
character symbols are determined, and interaction,
movement, and location elements are identified. Map
elements are created by consuming information, such
as coordinates, character names, actions, and layout cat-
egory. The Type field is used to select the template.
Believed or intended actions have a B or I value for
this field, respectively. A single table will not contain
both intentions and beliefs. For the Table 1 example,
the system would select the standard map document
template, since all record types are S for standard. It
would display a blue General A icon at Point 0 and
Point 1 and a grey General B icon covered with a
death icon to indicate he was killed at Point 2. It
would draw an arrow between points 0 and 1 and
canon artillery fire from point 1 to point 2. Then it
would export an image of the map to be embedded
within the story it would accompany.
The structure of four low-level objects, coordinates,
actors, points, and lines, used for this process is specified
in Table 2. A coordinate encodes a map position. The
actor object name and team are used for the symbol

Table 2. Low-level objects used by Algorithm 1.

Object Contents
Figure 3. Default GIS linear symbol layout (first row) versus a lay- coordinate longitude, latitude
out modified to avoid occlusion (second row) representing (a) an actor name, team
entity moving left to right and (b) a triangle entity attacking a point coordinate, actor, type
line start point, end point
square entity.

look-up table and the legend label. A point object specifies
pairs of coordinate and actor objects and encodes the type
(S, I, B, or other) indicating the plotting location (main
map or alternative world view map). Lines are line seg-
ments specified by start and end point object pairs.
The three central data structures used for the map gen-
eration process are composed of point and line objects
and are returned by the function described by the pseudo-
code in Algorithm 1. The GETFEATURES function takes a
semantic representation of story elements, database
table T, and returns a set of points and two sets of lines,
one for movements, the other for interactions. This
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 399
function first calls GETEXTENT to get the main map full
extent, ext, needed for adjusting line lengths. GETEXTENT
derives the extent of the main map based on a bounding
box of coordinates in the Coord, From, To, and TCoord
fields for records where Type is S.
The remainder of the procedure involves gathering a
point set (point_set) and line sets (mline_set, for movement
lines, and iline_set, for interaction lines) for populating the
maps, as well as identifying the position and name of the
actor, if any, that has a notion (intention or belief) to be
portrayed (actorN). In Algorithm ??, r(field_name) denotes
the row r value of a field named field_name. For each row, r,
400 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.
in table T, an actor object is created for the current actor
and set to r(Name) and r(Team), for use in symbol look-
up and the legend label. Then r(Type) is checked. If the
record type has a value other than S in any row, map_type
is set to that value (so that an augmented template will be
used) and actorN is assigned the actor name specified in
the corresponding field (so that a thought bubble icon
can be drawn nearby). Next, points and lines are collected
based on r(Action).
For movement actions, the point of origin is always
added to the point set. If the record type is not standard,
the destination is added to the point set and will be dis-
played on the alternative world view map. If the record
type is standard, the destination point is added to the
point set unless the moving actor is actorN. Finally,
before adding the origin-destination line to the move-
ment line set, the SHORTEN function adjusts the line
length, as specified in Equations (1) and (2).
For attack or kill actions, an actor object is defined for
the target. Origin and target points are also set. For
attacks, the origin-target line is shortened and added to
the interaction line set (iline_set). For kills, the target
actor is modified to be named DEATH or SUICIDE
with no team affiliation and the target point is modified.
Figure 4. A map displaying move, dual attack, and kill story elements from a DoTA2 story: Crystal Maiden emerges from the forest and
attacks Skywrath Mage who returns fire but is killed in the fight.
Both the actor and target points are added to the point
set.
The last type of action currently being handled says
that an actor is located at a given position. For this, a
point object is created and it is added to the point set.
After all the rows are handled in this way, if the map
type is not standard, then GETCOORDS is used to get the
position of actorN, an actor object named NOTION with
no team affiliation is used to create a standard typed
point object with these coordinates for this actor. This
point is then added to the point set so that a notion
icon will be displayed on the main map.
Once GETFEATURES returns the map type and the point
and line sets, the GIS layers are created. Point and lines to
be placed on the standard map are selected by their point
(or start point) type, with one GIS layer for points, one
for movement lines, and one for interaction lines. If the
map type is standard, these layers are added to the main
map of the standard template. If the map type is not stan-
dard, points and lines are selected based on the point types
corresponding to the map type. Again GIS layers from
points, movement lines, and interaction lines are created.
These are added to the alternative world view map of the
augmented map template and the GIS layers created

from the standard map selection are added to the main
map of this template. Lastly, an image of the finalised
map is exported.
4.2. Battle game application
To demonstrate the capabilities of our system, we selected
a narrative that would include the types of story elements
we had determined to address. We used narrative derived
from the game logs of an online multiplayer battle game,
‘Defense of the Ancients’ (DoTA2) for this purpose. In
this game, two teams (Radiant and Dire) of five players
fight to destroy the opposing team’s ‘Ancient’. The
Ancients are large structures in opposite corners of the
battlefield, in each team’s territory.
To produce maps from DoTA2 semantic represen-
tations, we supplied a base map to represent the
DoTA2 battlefield and added that to the existing stan-
dard map template (used in Figure 4) or augmented
map template (used in Figure 5). We also constructed
symbology layers for the DoTA2 application: a point
symbology layer with character icon symbols, a line
symbology layer with wide arrows to indicate move-
ment, and line and point layers to be used in combi-
nation to represent attacks with sparks from various
weapons. Figure 4 shows an example of a typical out-
put, including a main map zoomed to where the action
is taking place, an overview map showing the action
location relative to the entire battlefield, a north
arrow, and a legend describing the symbols present
on the map. In this map, the events include a move-
ment and a localised interaction.
Figure 5. This map displays a DoTA2 character’s misguided belief about the position of an object in relation to himself.
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 401
This domain provided the opportunity to test our sys-
tems’ capability to map simple story elements (a charac-
ter’s position, or a single move) and compound story
elements (two characters attack each other, a character
moves more than once or moves and attacks). Figure 4
shows a compound story element. In this map, Crystal
Maiden emerges from the forest and attacks Skywrath
Mage who counter attacks, but dies as a result of the fight.
We were also able to test our mapping capabilities for
expressive elements. Specifically, the battle game narra-
tive sometimes indicates a character’s intentions; for
example, someone may intend to attack another charac-
ter or to acquire a precious resource, such as a rune (a
healing potion). The game narrative also expresses
beliefs, sometimes fallacious; In Figure 5 Pudge believes
the rune is located northwest of him, when, in fact, it
is downstream, to the southeast. As previously discussed,
belief and intention maps have a different format since
they need to reflect the current world state as well as a
belief or intention. The main map shows the current
world state with a thought bubble next to a character
who believes something or intends to do something.
What the character believes to be true or intends to do
is shown in a separate area with a cartoon bubble map.
A DoTA2 match typically lasts 45–75 min. We tested
the automatic map generation tool with data from a seg-
ment of a game log.
5. Perception study
We aimed to generate maps that would enhance under-
standing and stimulate engagement in the stories they
402 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.
accompany. Prior work suggests that map design impacts
the performance benefits, in terms of recall and compre-
hension, of adding maps to a text. Findings from prior
research also indicate that training subjects to use the
maps enhances comprehension of text that is presented
along with the maps. We conducted a study to investigate
if our automatically generated maps were being inter-
preted as intended, whether their content afforded recall
of both spatial and non-spatial story details and to deter-
mine how training on the maps affected comprehension
of a story told with our maps. Although maps are gener-
ally best used to provide spatial context to the text they
accompany (Mocnik and Fairbairn 2018), our maps also
convey non-spatial information via symbols, colour, and
a legend that explains the symbology. To determine if
our maps could be understood on their own, we presented
a set of maps without the text they were designed to con-
vey. We were particularly curious about the effectiveness
of our representation of belief and intention. We believed
that users would, in general, be able to interpret our maps
as intended and comprehend and recall the story without
training, but that training would improve map interpret-
ations and be needed to comprehend the belief and inten-
tion maps. Therefore, we designed our study to address
the following hypotheses:
. H1: Viewers would interpret the maps as intended.
. H2: Level of training will not impact the recall of
spatial or non-spatial story details.
. H3: Minimal training would improve individual map
interpretation.
. H4: Additional training would not provide a signifi-
cant improvement in map interpretation.
. H5: Training would provide a larger improvement in
map interpretation for the less conventional map dis-
plays, belief and intention.
. H6: Given the intended interpretation, viewers would
accurately evaluate the quality of their responses.
5.1. Study design
For our study, we selected a DoTA2 story titled ‘The Battle
for the Rune’ to represent with maps. We automatically
generated 10 maps based on character locations, move-
ments, and actions during the story. There are 4 characters,
2 from the ‘Dire’ team and 2 from the ‘Radiant’ team. In the
story, characters battle each other with various weapons,
some seek the healing rune, and as the plot dictates, some
of the characters are killed or commit suicide.
Figure 11 shows the entire story, including the 10
maps and the 5 short transition passages used to convey
the non-spatial story aspects (for example, one says
‘After a while, Pudge has taken so much damage that
he needs to heal himself, or he will die. Pudge knows
that a Regeneration Rune is somewhere in the river,
and that this will restore his health if he takes it’). The
intended conveyance for each of the 10 maps is listed
in Table 3.
To test if the interpretation of the automatically gen-
erated maps would vary with prior exposure to similar
maps (H3, H4), we varied the training level. One group
received no training, a second group was exposed to
six training maps, and a third group was exposed to 10
training maps. The training maps, shown in Figure 9,
were designed with similar elements to the maps that
would be seen during the story portion of the study.
The six map training group saw maps 1–6 in Figure 9.
Each of these maps contained the representation of a dis-
tinct simple story element including location (map 1),
movement (map 2), attack (map 3), fatal attack (map
4), intention (map 5), and belief (map 6). To make this
training more rigorous, not all of these maps contained
only simple elements. The fatal attack in map 4 could
be considered as a compound element, attack plus
death. Also, the character’s intention in map 5 contains
a compound element, movement plus attack, shown in
the intention bubble. These were included since several
of the story maps have compound elements.
The 10 map training group saw maps 1–10 in Figure 9.
The four additional types of maps contained a combi-
nation of the elements already presented in the first
group of training maps. These maps included a move fol-
lowed by an attack (map 7), an attack from an unknown
character (map 8), a suicide attack (map 9), and a dual
attack (an attack with a counterattack, as in map 10).
To gather more information about the effectiveness of
our map design choices, we also solicited feedback on
several of the story maps that we believed could prove
the most difficult to interpret.
5.1.1. Participants
We recruited 90 online participants via Amazon Mechan-
ical Turk (AMT). Our goal was to have 3 groups of 30 par-
ticipants in order to have a large enough sample size to
derive significant between-group statistical results (Van-
Voorhis and Morgan 2007). The responses from five of
these participants had to be discarded because their
answers were inapposite. Of the 85 valid participants, 27
received no training, 32 received six training maps, and
26 completed 10 training maps. 51 of the participants
were male and 34 were female, all between the ages of
18 and 54, 79% of which were between 25 and 44. All par-
ticipants had at least a high school level of education; 49%
 BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 403

Table 3. ‘Battle for the rune’ map intended conveyance and story element type.
Map # Intended conveyance Story element type
2 Crystal Maiden and Pudge are Radiant team members, Skywrath Mage and Mirana are Dire team members. other
3 Skywrath Mage (Dire team) and Pudge (Radiant team) are on opposite sides of the river (in the centre of the battlefield). attack
Skywrath Mage launches an arcane bolt at Pudge.

5 Pudge (Radiant team) believes that the rune is in the northwest part of the river (it is actually in the southeast) and belief
heads that way.

7 Pudge (Radiant team) and Skywrath Mage (Dire team) both move southeast down the river toward the rune. movement

8 As they reach the southeast section of the river, Pudge launches his meat hook at Skywrath Mage and Skywrath Mage dual attack
reciprocates with Arcane Bolts.

10 Pudge launches a rot attack toward Skywrath Mage and kills himself in the process. suicide
11 Skywrath Mage (Dire team) intends to go get the rune (which is in the river to his southeast). intention

12 Crystal Maiden (Radiant team) moves from the forest and launches crystal novas at Skywrath Mage (Dire team) who movement plus dual attack
launches an arcane bolt at her. Skywrath Mage dies during the attack. and kill

13 A sacred arrow emerges from the trees and pierces Crystal Maidens body, killing her. hidden attack
14 Mirana (Dire team), appears on the path (from the forest) and moves (north) to the river and then down (southeast) to double movement
the rune.

had completed post-secondary education. 31 of the par-
ticipants had at least some experience with online battle
games (three playing regularly (two playing DoTA2),
eight playing once in a while, and 20 having played a
few times (two playing DoTA2)). Participants were com-
pensated $2.00 for completing our study.
5.1.2. Procedure
Participants were cyclically assigned to one of the three
training level groups based on the order in which they
started the study. Every participant was then presented
with a brief description of the Defense of the Ancients
(DoTA2) game to familiarise them with the story
domain. Participants in one of the two groups receiving
training were then shown a series of 6 (or 10) maps, one
at a time, and asked to write a sentence describing what
each map depicts.
The training group participants were then shown each
of the 6 (or 10) training maps again in the same order.
This time they were also shown a sentence expressing
the intended conveyance, along with their own descrip-
tions. During this session, they were asked to rate the
similarity of their response to the given description, rat-
ing them from 1 to 5 (with 1 = not at all similar, 2 = less
the half the same, 3 = about half the same, 4 = more than
half the same, and 5 = all or almost all the same).
Next, we explained to participants that they would be
shown a story told through maps and text. Each map or
text statement was displayed one at a time in the order
shown in Figure 11. For each map, they were asked to
write a description about what was portrayed in the
map. For each response, they were also asked to rate
their confidence in their response on a scale from 1 to 5.
Once the participants finished with the story maps,
they were presented with 10 multiple choice questions
(five spatial, five non-spatial: see Table 4) about the
story to test recall. After completing the questions, they
completed a short demographic questionnaire to indicate
their gender, education level, and GIS or cartography
experience. We also asked about MOBA game experi-
ence. MOBA, for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, is a
family of games including DoTA2 with a similar pre-
mise, layout, and set of rules. These participants could
have special knowledge of the story domain.
Finally, we presented four maps from the story along
with our intended conveyance. These maps either con-
veyed non-conventional notions or presented multiple
actions in a single map. They portrayed an intention, a
suicide, an attack by a hidden character, and a movement
followed by a dual attack. Here, we asked the participants
open-ended questions about which visual features they
were able to easily understand and which they found
to be confusing. We also asked for suggestions on how
to make the intended conveyance more clear.
5.2. Results
To determine if our maps were interpreted as intended
(H1), our team of ‘experts’, four researchers involved
in the study design, scored the participant map descrip-
tions in two ways. First, we identified the elements pre-
sent in each map. These included character/object
names, team affiliations, location within the battlefield,
movement, attack type and direction, death (murder
vs. suicide), unknown/hidden items, beliefs, and inten-
tions. Then we assigned expert ratings to each
404 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.
participant’s description of each map on a scale of 1 and
5 based on the number of map elements mentioned in
the response, with a 1 for no elements, a 2 for less than
half, a 3 for half, a 4 for more than half, and a 5 for all
or almost all elements mentioned. With these scores,
we could quantify the closeness of the responses to the
sentence the map represented. In some cases, however,
ratings could be medium to low for this metric, but
this did not capture the participant’s understanding of
the map. The score, in some cases, was instead due to
the lack of detail in the response. We needed a second
rating system that would not penalise responses from
participants who gleaned the core message of the map,
but had not provided all the details. To this end, we
assigned a binary score for each participant indicating
whether or not the participant understood the main
idea of each map (movement, interaction, location,
belief, intention). For example, a description of story
map 5 as ‘Pudge believes he is closer to the Rune than
he really is.’ would receive an expert rating of 3 because
the actual and surmised Rune locations are not specified
and a description of story map 8 as ‘Two heroes use their
attacks on each other.’ would receive an expert rating of 2
because the character names and attack types are not
specified. But the respondents clearly grasped the gist
of what these maps are communicating, so we character-
ise that with the ‘main idea’ evaluation.
We compared the expert ratings on the training maps
with the participants’ self-assessment ratings. As we
hypothesised in H6, we found a strong positive correlation
between the two (R2 = 0.889, p , 2e−16 ) demonstrating
that the participants were honestly assessing their per-
formance, not inflating their scores. There was no corre-
lation between expert ratings and participant level of
confidence in their responses (R2 = 0.05, p = .0205 ).
This mismatch may be because participants were not
told that responses would be rated on the inclusion of
details, such as character team affiliation or direction of
movement, although there was also no correlation
between participant understanding of the main idea and
their confidence levels (R2 = 0.1085, p = .0015).
For the story map portion, we did not ask participants
to do self-assessment of their descriptions, as this might
have distracted from overall story comprehension. We
can, however, compare expert ratings of story maps
across the training groups. Note that all p-values
reported here are raw p-values, not corrected for mul-
tiple tests. For each participant, we calculated the sum
of the expert ratings for the 10-story maps. For these
values, the 10 training map groups scored significantly
higher than the no training group (p=.0049). The 10
training group also understood the main idea on signifi-
cantly more of the maps than the participants in the
group with no training (p=.0123). No significant differ-
ence was found between the 6 and 10 map training
groups or the zero and six training groups on either of
these measures, which supports hypothesis H4.
Comparing across groups on map story element types
shows that participants receiving training scored signifi-
cantly higher than the no-training group for map 3
(supporting hypothesis H3 for this story element only)
in Figure 11 in which the main idea is an attack, with
p = .0168 for the six training map group and p = .0004 for
the 10 training map group. Participants receiving 10 train-
ing maps scored significantly higher than the no-training
group on the dual attack (map 8 with p = .0391), movement
plus attack (map 12 with p = .0134), and double movement
maps (map 14 with p = .0039).
In the ‘main idea’ story map evaluations, the concept of
belief was understood with or without training but the con-
cept of intention was confused with a belief by 15 of the par-
ticipants, 11 of whom had training (rejecting hypothesis
H5). The suicide map was misunderstood by all with the
exception of two participants who were familiar with the
DoTA2 domain and described the suicide event accurately.
Most noted the character’s death, but either did not say
how he died or said that he died from an attack by another
character. This may have been due to the legend which says
the character died, but does not mention suicide.
We also compared the age categories, candidate gen-
der, and educational levels. There were no significant
differences in expert ratings associated with the age, gen-
der, or educational level of participants.
The average participant score for Table 4 multiple
choice questions was 76.7% with no significant differences
across groups and the median score was 77.8%. The low
score was 44.4% and there were multiple maximum scores
Table 4. ‘The battle for the rune’ story recall questions. q2, q4,
q5, q8, and q10 are spatial questions and the rest are non-spatial.
1. Which characters die (select all that apply)?
a) Crystal Maiden b) Skywrath Mage c) Mirana d) Crystal Nova e) Pudge
2. What part of the river did Pudge initially believe the rune was located
in?
a) southwestern b) southeastern c) northeastern d) northwestern
3. Which characters played on the dire team (select all that apply)?
a) Crystal Maiden b) Skywrath Mage c) Mirana d) Crystal Nova e) Pudge
4. What part of the river was the rune actually located in?
a) southwestern b) southeastern c) northeastern d) northwestern
5. In which direction did Pudge and Skywrath Mage run before they
attacked each other?
a) southeast b) northeast c) northwest d) southwest
6. What weapon did Skywrath Mage attack Pudge with?
a) meat hook b) sacred arrow c) arcane bolt d) grenade
7. Who does Crystal Maiden attack?
a) Skywrath Mage b) Pudge c) Mirana d) Crystal Nova
8. In what direction did Mirana move to get to the river?
a) north b) south c) east d) west
9. What weapon was used to kill Skywrath Mage?
a) arcane bolt b) crystal nova c) sacred arrow d) meat hook
10. What separates the southwest area of the map from the northeast area?
a) forest b) river c) field d) combat zone
 BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 405

Figure 6. Average scores of participants in each training group on the Table 4 multiple choice questions. Q2, Q4, Q5, Q8, and Q10 are
spatial questions and the rest non-spatial. The bar groupings represent the overall average scores (left), the spatial question averages
(middle), and the non-spatial question averages (right).

of 100%. Based on these results, we conclude that the par-
ticipants understood the story we intended to visualise
with our maps and training is not necessary for overall
story recall. Further statistical details regarding this sup-
port for hypothesis H2 follow. Figure 6 shows the results
on the multiple choice questions by group and question
type. The spatial questions (Q2, Q4, Q5, Q8, and Q10 in
Table 4) asked for location and directional information
(such as ‘In which direction did Pudge and Skywrath
Mage run before they attacked each other?’ or ‘What
part of the river was the rune located in?’); Whereas, the
non-spatial questions asked for recall of feature and
event information such as character names and teams,
weapons used, and battle results. Although we found no
significant difference in the overall accuracy of answers
on the multiple choice questions due to training, the
group receiving no training performed worse than the
group trained with six maps on the spatially related ques-
tions with borderline significance (p=.0544). Understand-
ing the non-spatial elements of the story required reading
the text in the legend. The participants in the group that
did not receive any training did slightly better on average
than the trained groups on the non-spatially related ques-
tions, although not significantly (p = .1615 for the 10
training map group and p = .3515 for the 6 training
map group). This may be because the group with no train-
ing would likely need to inspect the legend more closely
than those that received map training would to under-
stand the map.
To determine if the training had an effect on how well
the participants in the training groups understood indi-
vidual story maps, we identified the story element types
of the story maps and matched it with a training map
conveying the same story element, where possible.
Seven of the story map elements had a training map
equivalent. We denote the story maps as Sa, where a is
the numeric label in Figure 11 and the training maps
as Tb, where b is the numeric label inFigure 9. The
three story maps without equivalent training maps
were S2 (legend), S12 (movement with dual attack plus
kill), and S14 (double movement). The seven story
elements represented in both the story and training

Figure 7. Percentage of training group participants who correctly described the main idea presented in the maps. The black and grey
bars represent performance on story maps and performance during training on a similar map. The three story maps that did not have a
training map equivalent are excluded from this comparison.
406 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.
maps were movement (S7:T2), attack (S3:T3), intention
(S11:T5), belief (S5:T6), dual attack (S8:T10), suicide
(S10:T9), and hidden attacker (S13:T8) elements.
We compared the expert ratings on the seven selected
training maps with those of the seven story maps
matched for similar content. Figure 7 compares the per-
centage of training group participants that understood
the main idea in each of these map types during the
training session versus during the story session. The
first four categories (movement, attack, intention, and
belief maps) include 58 (= 32 + 26) participants who
were in the 6 or 10 training groups, whereas the last
three only include the 26 participants who saw 10 train-
ing maps. The six training map group did not see maps
8, 9, and 10 during training. In all cases, the perform-
ance of the trained participants improved when pre-
sented with a story map similar to a map they had
been trained on.
On average over the seven maps presented in Figure 7,
18.5 percent more of the trained participants understood
the main idea of the story maps than understood the
main idea of the related training maps (p-value = .08).
The intention and belief maps were often both inter-
preted as belief hence the greater performance improve-
ment for the training groups on interpreting a belief map
than for interpreting an intention map. Johnson, Stamm,
and Verdi (2000) varied the distinctiveness of map fea-
tures and tested both with and without text labels. Better
recall was evident with labels. The best results used dis-
tinctive symbols and text labels. Despite the text label
in the intention and belief reference maps, viewers
were not always distinguishing them. We used two dis-
tinct base colours in the reference map, but we believe
this was not salient enough. A change in the shape of
the bubble and position of the reference map could pro-
vide a stronger cue and the label might be more promi-
nent if placed outside the map.
Figure 8. Percentage of participants in each training group who correctly described the main idea in seven of the story maps. The six
map training group did not see maps with the same main idea as the last three elements (dual attack, suicide, and hidden attacker)
during training. The 10 map training group saw equivalents for all seven.
Another indication that training helped with map
interpretation is demonstrated in Figure 8, which
shows the percentage of participants by group who cor-
rectly interpreted the main idea of the same seven story
maps used for comparison in Figure 7. The untrained
group did not perform as well as the trained groups
(with one exception discussed below). In fact, their per-
formance on the story maps was similar to the perform-
ance of the training groups on the corresponding
training maps. This is reasonable since it was their first
encounter with the maps. Only the group that were
shown 10 training maps were trained on the dual attack,
hidden attacker, and suicide maps and they performed
the best on these map types in the story.
The exception mentioned above was for the movement
map. During training, 13 participants misinterpreted the
simple movement map as a path that the character was
told to take, was going to take, or wanted to take rather
than a representation of a move the character was taking
or had taken. During the story, the movement map
showed Pudge and Skywrath Mage moving towards the
rune (see map 7 in Figure 11). The story context gleaned
from previous maps may have helped everyone under-
stand this one without the need for training (like that
shown in Figure 9).
5.3. Discussion
The results in Figures 7 and 8 indicate that some training
is beneficial for main idea apprehension for maps in iso-
lation, though story context may reduce the need for
training, supporting both H2 and H3. The main idea
of the dual attack and hidden attacker maps were the
most successfully interpreted without training (Figure 7),
which lends support to H4. Our encoding of belief
showed the greatest increase with training (since this is
not the case for the intention maps, H5 is only partially
 BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 407

Figure 9. Training maps to familiarise participants with the representation techniques. The three study participant groups were shown
zero, 6 (maps 1–6), or 10 training maps.

supported). These results validate that this training tech-
nique improved main idea apprehension for all story
element types. Practically speaking, this means that a
few examples given in a short training session may be
employed to improve comprehension of the story
maps. An analogous training technique could be appro-
priate for other types of novel information visualisations.
Additionally, this approach may be used to diagnose
whether or not training is necessary.
Asking the participants to write descriptions, in
addition to answering multiple choice questions,
revealed some valuable insights. Beyond the quantitative
results from the expert rating process, we were able to
observe how viewers reacted to our maps. Although
the instructions, ‘Write a short description about
what’s presented in the image’, gave no indication that
the response should be colourful, participants wrote
creative, animated descriptions for the story maps. For
example, map 7 (see the close up in Figure 10), depicts
two characters moving toward the rune. This map
inspired many participants to punctuate with exclama-
tion points. They used phrases like ‘beat each other to
the rune’, ‘race to the rune’, ‘on the move’, and ‘neck
and neck’. Imagination carried some participants to con-
struct elaborate descriptions; for example, someone
wrote, ‘Searching the river bottom, for the rune, Pudge
realises he is mistaken about its location and it lies down-
river. Adding to his dire predicament, before he reaches

Figure 10. Close-up of Map 7. This map depicts ‘Pudge (Radiant team) and Skywrath Mage (Dire team) both moving southeast down
the river toward the rune.’
408 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.
the rune and restores his dwindling strength, Skywrath
Mage hones in on him as he makes his move’. Our
AMT task might have attracted a higher MOBA enthu-
siast representation than the overall population, so this
may be an artefact of that predilection. AMT participants
are paid by the task, however, so succinct answers would
be expected; one possible reason for more elaborate
responses is engagement. Such engagement with the
story could indicate that it is possible to effectively con-
vey a story with automatically generated maps and that
the maps can inspire the kind of storyline exploration
we want to support.
Since the instructions did not specifically direct par-
ticipants to make the description as complete as possible,
level of detail varied greatly across responses. Presenting
an example question and answer with the desired level of
detail prior to the training would likely have resulted in
more consistency in the level of detail. But given this
flexibility, we were able to test the reliability of self-
assessment on variable response styles. Additional analy-
sis of the responses to see which elements participants
deemed important enough to include could prove
interesting.
We believe that the overview map may not have been
widely utilised because participants did not mention
where events were occurring on the battlefield in their
map descriptions. Some participants commented that
they liked the overview map, but others said they
found it confusing or distracting. For a multimedia
story application which embeds maps within text,
more work may be needed to determine when to include
overview maps and other map surrounds and where to
place them. Moving the overview map to the left side
might encourage viewers who read from left to right to
note the framing of the message before inspecting the
details.
The remarks about the overview maps came from
soliciting open-ended feedback after participants had
read the story with the maps. Though participation
was anonymous, we received many positive comments
and a number of the participants said that they found
the maps clear and easy to interpret and found the
legend helpful. The use of AMT creates a double-
blind environment, removing potential bias from direct
contact with researchers, though participants may
believe that tone could influence payment approval.
We tried to reduce this potential problem by limiting
our pool to those with high ratings on their AMT
job history.
To gather the open-ended feedback, we showed four
of the story maps again (maps 10–13). These were
selected for the novelty or complexity of the story
elements they represent (a suicide attack, an intention,
a movement plus a dual attack and a kill, and a hidden
attacker). We collected comments and suggestions for
modifications that could increase the clarity of the
maps:
. Map 10 (Suicide Attack) Most participants agreed
that it was not clear that one of the characters killed
himself. They suggested using a different symbol, dis-
tinct from the one used for other kinds of deaths, and
then it should be listed in the legend as suicide. Others
suggested superimposing the attack symbol on the
suicidal character icon to indicate the method of
suicide. The participants that successfully interpreted
this map had some MOBA experience, and therefore,
they were likely familiar with the suicide attack behav-
iour depicted here. Domain expert knowledge may
enable more flexibility in map encoding, since the
typical events can be readily divined.
. Map 11 (Intention) Although in general, the partici-
pants understood the belief and intention maps, some
confused them with each other and suggested they be
made more distinct. Some suggested that a unique
symbol colour or type would be more effective than
a thought bubble to communicate intention. The
thought bubble base maps already use distinct colour
tones (a yellow filter for beliefs and a teal one for
intentions). To emphasise the distinction, redundant
encoding may be needed. For example, the two
types of thought bubble could be located in a different
position in the map layout.
. Map 12 (Movement + Dual Attack + Kill) There was
some confusion regarding the direction of attacks,
mostly when dual attacks from two characters were
the same colour. Also, dual attack lines were superim-
posed. Participants suggested matching the attack col-
ours to the attacker team colour, adding a directional
arrow to the attack line, spatially offsetting dual attack
lines, and labelling asynchronous attack lines to indi-
cate temporal ordering.
The presence of the character icon at both the start
and end of the movement path caused some con-
fusion. One description of map 12 read ‘One Skywrath
Mage follows another Skywrath Mage…’. Participants
suggested making the starting icon semi-transparent
or grayed out.
Placing only one icon at the start (about to move)
or end (has moved) of an arrow might also be an effec-
tive encoding of the verb tense. In some cases, how-
ever, this approach can lead to difficulty in
deciphering overlapping move trails of individual
characters. The trail length along with proximity to
other mapped features could be taken into account
to select a good approach for each situation.
 BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 409

. Map 13 (Hidden Attacker) There were some miscon- 6. Conclusions and future work
ceptions regarding the hidden attacker. Some found
Through this work, we were able to construct a tool to
that it wasn’t clear that the attack from the bushes
automatically generate maps from a semantic represen-
was from a character and suggested including an
tation of spatial narrative elements. We conducted an
unknown or hidden character icon or making the hid-
in-depth review of a book of story maps to determine
den character transparent instead of absent.
several types of narrative elements that can be mapped
and how we could represent them. We implemented a
The study design and detailed analysis of responses
system that handles location, movement, and interaction
exposed strengths and weaknesses of our visualisation
story elements, as well as beliefs and intentions with
choices. Despite some concerns, the participant map
spatial predicates. We used battle game data to test our
descriptions show that location, movement, and simple
system and we presented the output to users to gather
interactions are easily interpreted with little or no train-
feedback and test the effectiveness of our maps.
ing, though benefit from 10 training maps is evident for
In the course of this study, we identified a technique
more complex interactions and less conventional
that could be used for training or diagnostics. Partici-
mapped elements. Modifications to the map designs
pants described a stimulus and were later presented
informed by this study may reduce the need for
with the intended interpretation for the stimulus and
training.

Figure 11. The 15 story elements (10 images + 5 short text passages) presented sequentially in the user study to tell a story titled ‘Battle
for the Rune’.
410 L. TATEOSIAN ET AL.
asked to critique their own accuracy. Our study indicates
that participants absorbed the encodings with this
exposure to the stimulus. More importantly, we found
that the self-critique was apt. The high correlation with
expert evaluation indicates that this can be used as an
efficient visualisation evaluation approach. In other
words, this approach can be used to determine whether
or not training is required for a representation. One of
the challenges in developing visualisation techniques is
an effective evaluation. This technique might be
extended to evaluate story map choremes and other visu-
alisation approaches designed to communicate specific
messages.
The term ‘story maps’ might be interpreted in two
ways. One is maps that themselves tell a story, in the
absence of a written narrative (like Minards’ map of
Napolean’s march on Russia). Another is maps that illus-
trate spatial elements stated in the prose they accompany.
Keeping in mind related work on retention and compre-
hension of text accompanied by maps, we focused on the
latter. The current system generates maps for reinforcing
individual spatial story elements that are also conveyed in
text, an addition that can assist with recall and compre-
hension (Paivio 1990; Kulhavy, Lee, and Caterino 1985).
Our story maps have a short time range, limiting the num-
ber of actions within a single map. This enabled us to
gauge the effectiveness of individual action depictions.
They are modelled after the insert maps in the Gettysburg
book, where the maps are inserted in the text near the
Figure 12. Conveying the order of multiple story events within a single map using numerical labels.
passage they portray. As more elements are added to a
single map, the map may be able to tell a longer story,
but communicating temporal ordering will need to be
addressed. For example, the sequence of events in Figure
4 can be divined from semantics. CM’s move comes first,
before the fighting, since she fights from her new pos-
ition, then SM’s attack occurs before CM’s counterat-
tack that kills SM. However, an explicit temporal
ordering representation could support a more effortless
comprehension.
As we begin to test our map generator on larger event
tables, we can see the potential for telling a story within a
single map and the increased need for temporal ordering
indicators. Any approach will have its weaknesses. Col-
our, like Minards map, could be used, though unlike
Napoleons troops, the patterns are not guaranteed dis-
tinct axial flows. Numerical labels are used on some
maps in the Gettysburg book. Figure 12 illustrates how
labels can be use used to express temporal event ordering
in our system. An animation may be better at illustrating
round-trip movement or reciprocal attacks, though the
extent would need to be limited so that concurrent
actions are not missed due to change blindness. Small
multiples may be useful for comparing the overall trends.
As we saw in the literature review, a number of human
geographers turned to rendering story-telling maps in a
space-time cube, though these tend to be clearest when
there are few characters. Regardless of the temporal visu-
alisation approach, the question of selecting a useful

temporal extent persists. Related work by Sheehan-Dean
(2009) indicates improved recall for references to
spatially close map features that are clustered together
within the text instead of scattered throughout it. This
suggests that textual description of a story could partially
drive map spatial-temporal extent selection. As another
approach, spatial clustering analysis could be used to
identify events that are localised in both space and
time. Detail maps could partition the data in this way
and an overview map could show the relationship
between the action clusters.
Additional unresolved challenges were revealed by
our study, including conveying causal links with spatial
predicates, optimising map extent and zoom level for
story-telling, effective use of map surrounds and their
layout. Our work does not address the challenges of
automatically generating basemaps. Base-maps for con-
temporary real-world stories are readily available, but
for certain applications, such as fantasy stories or stories
set far in the past, automatically generating a base map is
unsolved. Furthermore, the task of extending the list of
mappable story elements remains.
In our user study, we varied map training levels and
presented a story told with 10 maps along with five
short transition passages. Participants responses to the
questions in Table 4 indicate that training is not necess-
ary for participants to accurately recall specific plot
elements. Based on studies of learning with maps by
(Verdi and Kulhavy 2002), we take this as evidence
that our maps served to structure memory in ways that
support recall. This is a promising result and supports
the value of continued efforts to refine systems to auto-
matically generate maps from semantic representations.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported by Laboratory for Analytic Sciences
funded by National Security Agency [79570].
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