Auditory Research

SoundScape is a sonified mapping of continuously fluctuating data such as a stock market index or temperature changes in nuclear reactor that need to be monitored. It is important for SoundScapes to be peripheral (non-intrusive), aesthetically pleasing, and easily distinguishable from background noise.

Mauney, B.S., & Walker B.N. (2004) used forest theme sounds (e.g., cricket, cicada) to represent fluctuations in stock market prices. For my senior thesis, I studied how well participants could monitor data represented by a Soundscape made of percussion instruments while playing a medium-intensity game.

Download the paper here (in PDF).

For visually-impaired users, visual cues are replaced by sound cues. For menu navigation (e.g., cell phone menus) conventionally, menu items are spoken using text-to-speech (TTS). Though TTS results in accurate representation of the menu, the navigation is slow and tedious. In search for more efficient audio cues, this study compared non-speech audio cues to speech on the performance of menu navigation. More specifically, the study compared speed and accuracy of menu navigation using four sound types: auditory icons, hierarchical earcons, spearcons, and speech.