Citation

Neuhoff JG, Kramer G, Wayand J. J. Exp. Psychol. Appl. 2002; 8(1): 17-25.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, The College of Wooster, Ohio 44691, USA. jneuhoff@wooster.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12009173

Abstract

Many auditory displays use acoustic attributes such as frequency, intensity, and spectral content to represent different characteristics of multidimensional data. This study demonstrated a perceptual interaction between dynamic changes in pitch and loudness, as well as perceived asymmetries in directional acoustic change, that distorted the data relations represented in an auditory display. Three experiments showed that changes in loudness can influence pitch change, that changes in pitch can influence loudness change, and that increases in acoustic intensity are judged to change more than equivalent decreases. Within a sonification of stock market data, these characteristics created perceptual distortions in the data set. The results suggest that great care should be exercised when using lower level acoustic dimensions to represent multidimensional data.

Language: en