- Overview
The Sonification Lab is actively involved in many research projects. Some
of the more recent and major ones are listed below. Some projects have separate
web sites for more information. Others have items in the Publications
list. We always have several other projects underway, as well, often involving
an interdisciplinary team of students from all over campus, and often in
collaboration with other researchs, at GT or elsewhere.
For information about getting involved in our research (paid, volunteer, credit,
collaborator), please see our Opportunities page, where there is a list of personnel needs for the projects. Alternatively you can contact us for more details.
- Sonification Research
This research seeks to discover the optimal data-to-display mappings for
use in scientific sonification and investigate whether these optimal mappings
vary within and/or across fields of application.
- Auditory Graph Design and Context Cues
Creating a (visual) graph without axes, tick marks, or labels
will generally earn you an 'F' in highschool math class. After all, it is
just a squiggle on a page without the added context that those things
provide. Auditory graphs require the same elements, so we are studying how
best to create them, introduce them into an auditory graph, and examine
how people learn to use them for better (auditory) graph comprehension.
- Individual Differences in Auditory Display Comprehension
Every person hears things slightly differently. How can
we determine, in advance, what these differences will make (if any) in the
perception and comprehension of auditory graphs and sonification? What are
the characteristics of the listener that predict performance? We are studying
a range of factors, including perception, cognition, and listening experience.
One major factor we are considering is whether a listener is sighted or
blind, and if blind, at what age blindness occurred.
- Training for Auditory Display Comprehension
Sonifications and auditory graphs are relatively new, so
few people have experience with them. As a result, there is a great need
to understand how to train listeners to use and interpret auditory displays.
We are looking at training types, including simple exposure, part-task training,
whole-task training, and others, to determine what works best, and under
what circumstances.
- Bone Conduction Headsets ("bonephones")
For many real-world applications that use auditory displays, covering the ears of the
user is not acceptable (e.g., pedestrians amongst traffic; firefighters
who need to communicate). We are studying the use of bone conduction technology
as a method of transmitting auditory information to a listener, without
covering the ears. Our research ranges from basic psychophysics (minimum
hearing thresholds, frequency response, etc.), all the way up to 3D audio
via bonephones (yes, if can be done!). details...
- Audio Menu Navigation
A common and practical application of sound in the human-computer
interface is the audio menu. Generally, menu items are spoken via text-to-speech
(TTS), and the user simply navigates to the menu item of interest, and presses
a button to enter that menu or execute the menu command. We are studying
advances to this paradigm, including new interaction techniques. One example
is the "spearcon", which is a non-speech sound that can be prepended to
a menu item, in order to enhance navigation and speed up the menu selection.
You can read more about Spearcons in our ICAD
2006 paper about Spearcons. We continue to study audio menus and other
novel interaction methods.
- SoundScapes: Ecological Peripheral
Auditory Displays
We use natural sounds such as birdcalls, insect songs, rain,
and thunder to create an immersive soundscape to sonify continuous
data such as the stock market index. This approach leads to a display that
can be easily distinguished from the background when necessary, but can
also be allowed to fade out of attention, and not be tiring or "intrusive"
when not desired. details...
- Brainwave Sonification
Turning EEG data into 3D spatialized audio in order to study
source location, type, and timing for neural events.
- Sonification Applications and Auditory Interfaces
Taking what we learn in our research and applying it to real-world applications,
useful to a broad range of users in a multitude of scenarios.
- SWAN: System for Wearable Audio Navigation
Audio-only system to help those who cannot see (temporarily
or permanently) to navigate and learn about their environment. details...
- Sonification Sandbox
Simple yet powerful software package for creating data sonifications
and auditory graphs. Includes the ability to import data, map data to sound
parameters in multiple flexible ways, add contextual sounds like click tracks
and notifications, and save the resulting sound file. Written in cross-platform
Java/JavaSound. details & download...
- Audio Abacus
Innovative method to display specific data values, like
the exact price of a stock or the precise temperature. Standalone application,
or plugin for the Sonification Sandbox. Written in cross-platform Java/JavaSound.
details & download...
- Mad Monkey
MAD Monkey is software which allows a designer to prototype a spatialized audio environment, and contains much of the functionality that a full-fledged design environment should have.
MAD Monkey is written in MATLAB. Any computer with MATLAB installed should be able to run the application.
details & download...
- Human Computer Interaction
While we have projects underway in all aspects of HCI, we focus primarily
on non-traditional interfaces. This means pretty much anything other
than the usual WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, & Pointers) type of interface.
Everything from novel hardware interfaces, challenging usage environments,
uncommon or highly specific user needs, to new an unexplored task domains.
Examples range from submarine control & display, space station tasks, interfaces
for persons with visual impairments, medical and military tactical interfaces,
multimodal and non-visual interfaces.
- Human Factors and Medical Technology
With the increase of technology in the practice of medicine,
we have begun to study both the individual display components (both auditory
and visual),a nd how the technology is deployed. The MedTech Project is
a collaborative effort to examine how the physical arrangement of technology
(e.g., a desktop computer in a doctor's examination room) affects the quality,
or perceived quality, of patient care.
- The Accessible Aquarium Project
Museums, science centers, zoos and aquaria are faced with
educating and entertaining an increasingly diverse visitor population with
varying physical and sensory needs. There are very few guidelines to help
these facilities develop non-visual exhibit information, especially for
dynamic exhibits. In an effort to make such informal learning environments
(ILEs) more accessible to visually impaired visitors, the Georgia Tech Accessible
Aquarium Project is studying auditory display and sonification methods for
use in exhibit interpretation.
- Eye Tracking and HCI
Modern interface design can be informed by the results
of eye tacking studies, in addition to the more traditional reaction time
and accuracy studies. We are applying eye tracking techniques to examine
interaction with, for example, dialog boxes and other widgets.
