[1] Brushing and linking is also an important technique in interactive visual analysis, a method for performing visual exploration and analysis of large, structured data sets.
One example might be a two-part display, consisting of a histogram alongside a list of document titles.
The histogram could show how many documents were published each month.
Brushing and linking would allow the user to assign a color, green for instance, to one bar of the histogram, thus causing the titles in the list display that were published during the corresponding month to also be highlighted in green.
The technique and name 'brushing' were introduced in the 1980s by Richard A. Becker and William S.