Exploring the usability of sound strategies for guiding task: toward a generalization of sonification design

               

Authors: Parseihian G., Gondre C., Aramaki M., Kronland-Martinet R., Ystad S.
Publication Date: October 2013
Journal: Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Computer Music Multidisciplinary Research (CMMR 2013) (pp. 742-757, Marseille, France, 15-18 October 2013)

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Abstract

This article aims at providing a new Parameter Mapping Sonification approach in order to facilitate and generalize sonification design for different applications. First a definition of the target as a concept that enables a general sonification strategy that is not limited to specific data types is given. This concept intends to facilitate the separation between sound and information to display. Rather than directly displaying data dimensions through the variation of a specific sound parameter, the approach aims at displaying the distance between a given data value and the requested value. Then a taxonomy of sound strategies based on sound that allow the construction of several strategy types is presented. Finally, several sound strategies are evaluated with a user experiment and the taxonomy is discussed on the basis of user’s guidance behavior during a guiding task.


Sound examples

Sounds resulting from the nine sonification strategies controlled by a varying normalized distance from 1 to 0 and back to 0.5: