Ninth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

Food banks play an important role in the fight against hunger. Food bank managers often need to make difficult decisions due to the uncertainty in the supply and demand. Studies have shown that cognitive biases have an impact on decision making. This study investigates availability bias, one of the cognitive biases food bank operational managers face. Specifically, we wanted to use visual analytics, a tool that combines visualization and analytics to combat the availability bias. Using operational data from a local food bank, interactive dashboards were prepared as an alternative to the customary spreadsheet format that the food bank currently uses. A preliminary study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the dashboard and results indicated dashboards reduced the impact of the availability bias. Ten participants were recruited to the study. A between subject design was used with the independent variable being the presentation mode (traditional spreadsheet vs. interactive dashboard). The task was to forecast the amount of donated or distributed food for a certain week in the future based on historical data. Non parametric analyses were conducted to compare the performance and results indicated that the dashboard group performed significantly better than the spreadsheet group (S=730, p<0.05) although no significant difference was found in confidence ratings between the two presentation modes (S=19.5, p=0.067).