Auditory Display Sonification

Sonification is the use of nonspeech audio to convey information. More specifically, it is the mapping of data relations to sound in order to enable or enhance the finding of patterns and relationships in that data. It can be somewhat viewed as the audio analog to scientific visualization, but not exactly. The human auditory and visual systems evolved with complimentary abilities and acuities. For example, we can t see behind us, yet we are often able to localize the voice of a friend in another room at a party, even when we can t see them. In fact, infants can recognize their mother s voice before they can 

Figire 16.5. Bill s GaitLab walking synthesis controller. 

Fignre 16.6. Princeton PhOLIEMat pressure sensitive floor. 

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Zhao, H., Plaisant, C., Shneiderman, B., Duraiswami, R. Sonification of Geo-Referenced Data for Auditory Information Seeking Design Principle and Pilot Study. In Int. Conf. Auditory Display, Sydney, Australia (2004)... 

Barra, M., Cillo, T., Santis, A.D., Petrillo, U.F., Negro, A., Scarano, V., Matlock, T., Maglio, P.P. Personal webmelody Customized sonification of web servers. In Proc 2001 International Conference on Auditory Display (August 2001)... 

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