Exploring maps by sounds: using parameter mapping sonification to make digital elevation models audible

ABSTRACT

This study empirically investigates the potential of auditory displays for spatial data exploration, as an additional means to broaden the accessibility and dissemination of geographic information for a diverse body of users. In a mixed factorial experiment, three parameter mapping sonification methods are empirically evaluated to interactively explore discrete and continuous digital elevation models by auditory means. Contrasting prior sonification research, this study’s unique empirical evidence suggests that participants can indeed successfully interpret sonified displays containing continuous spatial data. Specifically, the auditory variable pitch leads to significantly better response accuracy, compared to the sound variable duration. Background and training has a weak effect on data interpretation performance with the auditory display. The more immersive the experienced soundscape, the better participants can interpret the sonified terrain. These encouraging empirical results indeed suggest that interactive auditory displays might offer additional means to disseminate spatial information, and to increase the accessibility to spatial data, beyond the currently dominant visual paradigm.

KEYWORDS:

• Auditory display
• parameter mapping sonification
• spatial data analysis
• digital elevation model
• GIS

Note

Appendix A (supplementary) contains the administered questions, including level of measurement of collected data, and weighting schemes for scoring. Appendix B (published online) shows the questionnaire used for the study. The developed software including use instructions, the spatial dataset for the highest complexity level and the applied methods B/C as well as some audio streams and short films are available as a JAVA applet on the Web at http://www.geo.uzh.ch/~jschito. The source code and the calculation of the variable operationalization are available on request from the first author.

Acknowledgments

This project was inspired by and is in honor of Prof. Pete Fisher’s trailblazing research on sonification in GIScience. We wish to thank all participants who provided valuable data by serving as research participants in the experiment. We also thank the anonymous reviewers who provided feedback to improve the communication of our research results.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.