The effect of icon arrays and analogies in risk communication among adolescent children

The aim of the study was to measure the effect of icon arrays and analogies on the comprehension of risk information in adolescents aged 11–15 years. We tested whether icon arrays lead to higher accuracy in simple risk calculation tasks and in difficult tasks such as trade-off and Bayesian problems compared to the numerical format. We also measured whether analogies improved risk understanding. Icon arrays led to better understanding of risk information and more accurate risk comparisons. The effects varied according to the difficulty of the task and the risk literacy of the participants. Analogies were helpful for adolescents with high risk literacy.