Comparative study on the effect of Parameter Mapping Sonification on perceived instabilities, efficiency, and accuracy in real-time interactive exploration of noisy data streams

This paper presents a comparative study on common Parameter Mapping Sonifications (PMSons) designed to reduce the perception of instabilities during the real-time interactive exploration of noisy data streams. The objective of this study is to evaluate the capacity of these PMSons in reducing the perceived fluctuations while preserving both efficiency and accuracy of participants' estimations during the exploration task. Based on the real application of beacon localization for rescue operations, an abstraction of the task was developed which simulates the basic concepts involved, i.e. the estimation of local maxima during the exploration of a 1D data topography. Three different PMSons were selected, based on pitch, pitch averaged over time, and tempo, evaluated for three different noise levels applied to the data. Subjects explored the auditory graph using a pen tablet to define their auditory viewpoint (i.e. position) on the topography. Evaluations were based on subjects' ability to quickly appraise the underlying data topography along with aesthetic considerations regarding the impact of noise on the exploration task. Results showed that both tempo and pitch averaged PMSon reduced the perceived instabilities compared to pitch, while tempo preserved the response time of the sonification feedback.