Mosaic Plots and Their Variants

Abstract

In this chapter we consider mosaicplots, which were introduced by Hartigan and Kleiner (1981) as a way ofvisualizing contingency tables. Named “mosaicplots” due to their resemblance to the art form, they consist of groups of rectangles that represent the cells in a contingency table. Both the sizes and the positions of the rectangles are relevant to mosaicplot interpretation, making them one of the more advanced plots around.With a little practice they canbecome an invaluable tool in the representation and exploration ofmultivariate categorical data.