{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_external48_20260801","source_assessment_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp03_opportunity320_20260801","cell_id":"negative_space_design__archaeology_paleontology","selection_stratum":"DEPLOYABLE_PRIORITY","search_queries":["archaeological GIS map visualization uncertainty clutter layers evidence interpretation research","archaeological maps blank areas no data unexcavated uncertainty visualization GIS","site:docs.qgis.org map themes layer visibility official documentation","focus context GIS visualization declutter semantic zoom prior art research","site:pro.arcgis.com official documentation display filters map layers focus context visibility range masking no data symbology","site:docs.qgis.org label masking feature official documentation cartographic mask","archaeology GIS visualization overlapping symbols clutter user study","archaeological data absence survey coverage map uncertainty empty area","site:historicengland.org.uk archaeological GIS standards project manager GIS guidance","site:archaeologydataservice.ac.uk GIS guide archaeological project GIS management layers metadata","\"Confidence maps: a tool to evaluate archaeological data's relevance\" PDF","\"Quantitative effects of overlay clutter\" experiments full text"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"Identification of Partially Occluded Map Symbols","publisher":"Cartographic Perspectives / North American Cartographic Information Society","url":"https://doi.org/10.14714/CP76.59","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2013","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["A controlled map-reading user test found that partial occlusion reduced symbol-identification efficiency.","The paper identifies a genuine trade-off: filtering or aggregation can reduce clutter but may hide information needed for exploratory analysis.","Overlapping symbols should generally be avoided, although controlled overlap can preserve otherwise lost observations."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"Quantitative Effects of Overlay Clutter and Information Access Effort: Examining the Scan-Clutter Trade-off in Displays with Geospatial Maps","publisher":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied / PubMed","url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38780583/","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2024-05-23","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Two experiments found that overlaying multiple geospatial databases imposes attentional costs.","Response time varied with clutter, display separation, and task type; clutter costs especially dominated in focused-attention tasks.","Separating displays also has a scanning cost, supporting a direct comparison between focus views, overlays, and separated views."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"Archaeological Sensitivity Mapping","publisher":"Historic England","url":"https://historicengland.org.uk/whats-new/research/back-issues/archaeological-sensitivity-mapping/","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2023-10-30","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Traditional archaeological distribution-map blanks can conflate areas believed to lack significant remains with areas about which little or nothing is known.","Historic England recommends categorical treatment of the whole landscape rather than leaving unexplained blank areas in sensitivity outputs.","Uneven investigation and knowledge affect archaeological spatial interpretation, and models may need to identify areas where evidence is insufficient for judgment."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Implicit Error, Uncertainty and Confidence in Visualization: an Archaeological Case Study","publisher":"IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics / IEEE VIS","url":"https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2021.3114848","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2021-10-29","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["SiteVis used separate archaeological data views and encoded collection methods, time, and era to expose implicit errors.","The study observed 14 expert and novice archaeologists during sense-making.","Novices became more aware of overlooked data issues, experts became more confident in the visualization, and participants requested additional contextual breadth or depth."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"QGIS User Guide: Configuring Map Themes","publisher":"QGIS Project","url":"https://docs.qgis.org/4.2/en/docs/user_manual/introduction/general_tools.html#configuring-map-themes","source_class":"OFFICIAL_PRODUCT_DOCUMENTATION","publication_date":"n.d.","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["QGIS map themes store visible layers, styles, visible style classes, and layer-tree state.","Users can switch quickly between predefined combinations and restore a saved combination.","QGIS includes show, hide, toggle, and hide-deselected layer controls, making reversible question-specific suppression technically routine."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"QGIS User Guide: Label Settings, Masks and Callouts","publisher":"QGIS Project","url":"https://docs.qgis.org/4.2/en/docs/user_manual/style_library/label_settings.html","source_class":"OFFICIAL_PRODUCT_DOCUMENTATION","publication_date":"n.d.","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["QGIS label masks can selectively prevent specified layers from drawing within a defined area around a label.","QGIS supports displacement, callouts, distance constraints, and placement rules for crowded maps.","These capabilities closely approximate the proposal's protected spacing, although chiefly around labels rather than arbitrary archaeological relations."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"Use Display Filters","publisher":"Esri ArcGIS Pro Documentation","url":"https://doc.esri.com/en/arcgis-pro/latest/help/mapping/layer-properties/display-filters.html","source_class":"OFFICIAL_PRODUCT_DOCUMENTATION","publication_date":"n.d.","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["ArcGIS Pro display filters reduce feature density without changing underlying features or their symbology.","Filters can be disabled without losing their definitions, enabling comparison with and without suppression.","Manual filters support switching among query-defined views for visual comparison."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"Confidence Maps: a Tool to Evaluate Archaeological Data's Relevance in Spatial Analysis","publisher":"CAA Proceedings / Heidelberg University Library","url":"https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeumdok.00000551","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2008","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Archaeological inventories are incomplete and heterogeneous, so spatial trends can reflect investigation intensity rather than past activity.","The proposed confidence maps combine representation and reliability layers to communicate how much confidence to place in archaeological spatial analysis.","The work is close prior art for semantic evidence-status overlays, but it does not provide reversible decluttering or protected spacing."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Independent evidence supports both halves of the diagnosed problem. Controlled cartographic and geospatial-display experiments show that overlap and overlay clutter slow or impair map reading, while Historic England explicitly reports that archaeological map blanks conflate believed absence with lack of knowledge. Archaeological confidence-map research further shows that incomplete and heterogeneous investigation can generate misleading spatial trends. The exact prevalence in ordinary excavation GIS remains unmeasured.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S8"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"The SiteVis study directly involved 14 archaeologists and found that uncertainty encodings affected awareness and confidence; participants also sought additional context. Historic England describes a practical need for transparent, understandable archaeological sensitivity maps. This establishes stakeholder relevance but not demand for this exact interface, purchasing intent, or willingness to add another governed view.","source_ids":["S3","S4"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"SUBSTANTIAL_COLLISION","closest_analogues":[{"name":"QGIS map themes combined with label masks and callouts","similarity":"Map themes already save question-specific visibility and styling states and restore them quickly; masks and callouts protect legibility in crowded areas. Together they implement reversible suppression, spacing around labels, and rapid context switching in one mainstream GIS.","remaining_difference":"The documentation does not provide an archaeological task preset that binds suppression to explicit void-state categories, provenance checks, and a tested comparison against ordinary toggles or phase small multiples. Masking is also label-oriented rather than a general guarantee around focal spatial or stratigraphic relations.","source_ids":["S5","S6"]},{"name":"ArcGIS Pro display filters","similarity":"Query-defined filters reversibly reduce feature density while preserving underlying data and can be disabled to compare filtered and full displays.","remaining_difference":"Display filters do not themselves explain why a region appears empty, protect spacing around focal relations, coordinate multiple archaeological layers as an auditable focus state, or guarantee a conspicuous full-context restore.","source_ids":["S7"]},{"name":"SiteVis archaeological uncertainty visualization","similarity":"SiteVis used separate archaeological views and explicitly encoded collection methods and temporal assumptions, closely matching question separation plus evidential-context cues.","remaining_difference":"The reported design did not combine protected spatial gaps, explicit states for unexcavated/missing/hidden/observed-absence regions, or a guaranteed restoration control, and it did not test the candidate against ordinary GIS layer toggles.","source_ids":["S4"]},{"name":"Archaeological confidence and sensitivity maps","similarity":"These approaches explicitly encode investigation reliability, knowledge gaps, and pseudo-absence rather than letting unqualified blank space imply archaeological absence.","remaining_difference":"They are analytical or cartographic layers, not a reversible focus-and-context interaction that suppresses non-focal competitors while protecting focal relations.","source_ids":["S3","S8"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"The remaining defensible claim is narrow and empirical: an archaeology-specific focus state that jointly binds question-scoped suppression, protected spacing around focal relations, explicit labels for observed absence versus unexcavated, missing, or intentionally hidden states, preserved provenance/uncertainty, and a conspicuous one-action full-context restore will outperform both a crowded all-layer view and ordinary map-theme toggles or phase small multiples without increasing omitted-context errors.","confidence":"HIGH"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Mainstream GIS products already supply saved/restorable visibility states, reversible display filters, selective label masks, callouts, and placement controls. Therefore a bounded prototype can be assembled without altering source records or building a new GIS. The unverified work lies in archaeological semantic conventions, multi-layer coordination, accessibility, provenance checks, and usability—not basic rendering feasibility.","source_ids":["S5","S6","S7"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"Experimental geospatial evidence links overlay clutter to attentional and response-time costs, and official archaeological guidance identifies pseudo-absence as a real interpretive problem. Avoiding these errors could materially improve reviewability, though their frequency in excavation GIS is unknown.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S8"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":3,"rationale":"Archaeologists in a primary study responded to uncertainty encodings and requested more contextual information, while Historic England seeks transparent and understandable archaeological spatial outputs. No evidence shows demand for the exact composed workflow or willingness to maintain it.","source_ids":["S3","S4"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":3,"rationale":"Explicit void-state semantics and a conspicuous restoration control plausibly improve on ordinary toggles, filters, or separate views. However, most mechanics already exist, and no study shows that the full composition beats its closest rivals or avoids their scanning and context-loss costs.","source_ids":["S2","S4","S5","S6","S7","S8"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":2,"rationale":"Saved focus states, reversible filtering, masking, separate archaeological views, and reliability or pseudo-absence maps are all documented prior art. Distinctiveness survives only in the tightly governed composition and its untested comparative performance.","source_ids":["S3","S4","S5","S6","S7","S8"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":5,"rationale":"The principal mechanics are native to QGIS and ArcGIS Pro and preserve underlying features. A prototype can be assembled through themes, styles, masks, filters, annotations, and an unchanged full-context theme.","source_ids":["S5","S6","S7"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"The intervention is a reversible presentation-layer test on a duplicate view, and archaeological GIS practice already relies on project-specific mapping, symbology, review, and expert verification. Exact local approval roles still vary by project and data steward.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S7"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"Existing studies demonstrate measurable map-reading outcomes such as accuracy and response time, and the required views are readily prototyped. Readiness is reduced by the absence of a validated archaeological task set, effect threshold, and direct nearest-rival comparison.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S4","S5","S6","S7"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":4,"rationale":"Explicit pseudo-absence or reliability semantics address a documented archaeological hazard, while reversible themes and filters preserve access to full data. Benefit remains contingent on users noticing the cues and restoration control and on suppression not hiding needed co-occurrence.","source_ids":["S1","S3","S5","S7","S8"]},"scalability":{"score":3,"rationale":"The mechanics are available in widely used GIS platforms, but focal-layer selection and classification of unexcavated, missing, restricted, and evidentially negative areas require project-specific archaeological and stewardship judgment.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S6","S7","S8"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Create three duplicate presentations from one completed non-sensitive dataset: unchanged all-layer baseline, ordinary map-theme or phase-view rival, and the full semantic-void focus composition. Include archaeological/GIS design labor, provenance and accessibility review, task preparation, preregistration, recruitment and compensation for at most 12 qualified readers, session coordination, analysis, and documentation. Existing computers and GIS are assumed; no excavation or equipment purchase is included.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["The dataset, baseline GIS project, and qualified internal reviewer are already available.","Native QGIS or existing ArcGIS capabilities are sufficient, so custom software development is unnecessary.","The estimate is a resource-equivalent band rather than a vendor quote or point estimate.","Participant availability does not require travel or institutional procurement."],"source_ids":["S1","S4","S5","S6","S7"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"After a successful comparison, define controlled void-state terms, reusable map themes and styles, full-context restoration conventions, provenance checks, accessibility rules, documentation, steward approval, and acceptance tests for one organization. Include labor, coordination, software configuration, compliance review, and limited evaluation; exclude major platform replacement.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Deployment remains a configured workflow on an existing GIS platform.","One organization and a modest number of map templates are in scope.","No restricted locations are used during configuration or training.","A custom plugin, enterprise integration, or new data model would move the cost upward."],"source_ids":["S3","S5","S6","S7","S8"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Launch the validated workflow for a bounded archaeological program, including dataset configuration, data-steward and publication review, staff training, accessibility checks, quality assurance, support procedures, and a post-launch non-live evaluation using retained baseline views.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["The organization already operates QGIS or ArcGIS Pro and suitable hardware.","Launch does not publish sensitive site coordinates or alter archival records.","Project-specific void classifications receive human review.","The scope is one program, not sector-wide rollout."],"source_ids":["S3","S5","S6","S7"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Maintain templates and semantic conventions, review new projects, train users, test accessibility and restoration controls, preserve baseline and provenance links, support software-version changes, and audit blank-state and omitted-context errors. Include labor, software, coordination, and periodic evaluation; exclude excavation and major GIS replacement.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Usage covers one organization or a modest portfolio.","Most mechanics remain supported by existing GIS software.","Human archaeological and stewardship review remains necessary.","No dedicated full-time engineering team is required."],"source_ids":["S3","S5","S6","S7","S8"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"Independent experimental evidence supports clutter and occlusion costs, and official archaeological guidance directly documents the conflation of evidential absence with lack of knowledge in blank map areas.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S8"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"Archaeological mapping is already conducted and reviewed through project GIS, expert verification, and official spatial-output workflows. A project GIS or publication lead is therefore a credible test authorizer, subject to the accountable project and relevant data stewards.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S7"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"Although most components are prior art, the remaining claim can be isolated by comparing the complete governed composition against both an all-layer baseline and ordinary map themes or phase views, with relation accuracy, void-state accuracy, and omitted-context errors as outcomes.","source_ids":["S2","S4","S5","S6","S7"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"All three comparison views can be created from one completed non-sensitive dataset using native GIS functions and evaluated by at most 12 qualified readers without changing records or making operational decisions.","source_ids":["S5","S6","S7"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"A duplicate-view study with retained baseline, explicit provenance and uncertainty, no sensitive disclosure, and immediate rollback is reversible. Advancement must stop for any meaningful increase in blank-state, provenance, or omitted-context errors.","source_ids":["S1","S3","S5","S7","S8"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"Official product documentation bounds the implementation to existing GIS capabilities, while the research literature identifies the necessary user-testing activities. Dollar bands remain low-confidence resource-equivalent estimates because no direct cost study or local staffing information was found.","source_ids":["S1","S4","S5","S6","S7"]}},"next_evidence_step":"Preregister a three-condition, randomized within-reader comparison using one completed non-sensitive dataset and at most 12 qualified readers: (A) unchanged crowded all-layer view, (B) the closest rival—ordinary question-specific map theme/toggle or phase small multiple without protected spacing or semantic void labels—and (C) the full composition with protected spacing, explicit observed-absence/unexcavated/missing/hidden states, preserved provenance and uncertainty, and one-action full-context restore. Use the same focal-relation and blank-state tasks in all conditions; score relation accuracy, void-state accuracy, response time, confidence, restore discoverability, and omitted-context or provenance errors. Before exposure, set a minimally meaningful advantage for C over B and a zero-tolerance rule for material provenance loss. Falsify advancement if C does not exceed the preregistered accuracy threshold over B, if readers ignore or misread the void cues, or if C causes any meaningful increase in omitted-context, provenance, or false-absence errors. Do not deploy or publish from the experimental view.","blocking_evidence":["The prevalence and severity of relation-detection and blank-state errors in representative excavation GIS projects are unknown.","No direct evaluation compares the complete composition with ordinary map themes, display filters, or phase small multiples.","A minimally meaningful accuracy advantage and unacceptable contextual-error threshold remain to be set before participant exposure.","It is unknown whether qualified readers reliably notice the semantic void cues and full-context restoration control.","Stakeholder willingness to configure, review, and govern an additional view workflow has not been demonstrated.","Cross-project accessibility, restricted-location handling, and recurring semantic-classification burden remain unmeasured."],"research_disposition":"PILOT_OR_ADOPTION_INQUIRY","world_novelty_boundary":"This bounded search found substantial prior art for every major component and close compositions in mainstream GIS and archaeological uncertainty mapping. It did not find an evaluated archaeological workflow that jointly binds question-scoped suppression, protected focal spacing, explicit four-state void semantics, provenance and uncertainty preservation, and conspicuous full-context restoration. That absence is only a result of this scoped search, not a patentability assessment or claim of world novelty."}