That s Odd! How Scientists Respond to Anomalous Data

We use an in vivo methodology to investigate the responses of scientists to anomalies. Protocols of 3 scientists performing data analysis in 2 domains were analyzed. We found that the scientists noticed anomalies and paid more attention to them than to expected data. This attention took the form of proposing a hypothesis and then elaborating that hypothesis by reference to other data in the visual display, rather than to the scientists theoretical domain knowledge.