Incoming links and pingbacks are different.

If I mention something in my blog and place a URL that links to an article/post in your blog, that would generate a pingback to you for that post, regardless of whether or not I visited that post.

The statistics in WP that you see are ACTUAL visitors that come into your site from another site. If visitors to my site click on the URL that leads to your site, WP stats would capture that as a visit/view for you.