Visualization of Composite Plots in R Using a Programmatic Approach and smplot2

Abstract

In psychology and human neuroscience, the practice of creating multiple subplots and combining them into a composite plot has become common because the nature of research has become more multifaceted and sophisticated. In the last decade, the number of methods and tools for data visualization has surged. For example, R, a programming language, has become widely used in part because of ggplot2, a free, open-source, and intuitive plotting library. However, despite its strength and ubiquity, it has some built-in restrictions that are most noticeable when one creates a composite plot, which currently involves a complex and repetitive process with steps that go against the principles of open science out of necessity. To address this issue, I introduce smplot2, an open-source R package that integrates ggplot2’s declarative syntax and a programmatic approach to plotting. The package aims to enable users to create customizable composite plots by linearizing the process of complex visualization. The documentation and code examples of the smplot2 package are available online (https://smin95.github.io/dataviz).