Psychoacoustics

Identity

Direction

Physical

Auditory

Cognitive

The ability to separate individual elements from a dense mixture

Depends greatly on space

Auditory displays must take into account the ability of the auditory system to discriminate changes and detect differences or elements

In 1997 when the International Community for Auditory Display (ICAD) held a workshop on sonification, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, that resulted in a report entitled “Sonification Report: Status of the Field and Research Agenda” (Kramer, et al., 1999). One of the most important tasks of this working group was to develop a working definition of the word "sonification"

“...sonification is the transformation of data relations into perceived relations in an acoustic signal for the purposes of facilitating communication or interpretation.”

HRTF

Transducer

Encoder

High frequency and temporal resolution

Basilar membrane

Equal loudness curves

Although this breaks at the extremes

Matching onsets/ending

Spectral harmonicity

Synchrony in changes of spectral components (amplitude or frequency)

Very often used in sonification

Pitch differences of 1Hz can be perceived @ 100Hz

Musical scales provide a preexisting cognitive structure

But

Polarity

Easy to manipulate

But

Discrete changes and continuous changes

Loudness can be mapped redundantly with pitch to enhance the salience of data changes or peaks

Discrete

Continuous