SONEX: An Evaluation Exchange Framework for Reproducible Sonification

Degara N, Nagel F, Hermann T. SONEX: An Evaluation Exchange Framework for Reproducible Sonification. In: Strumiłło P, Bujacz M, Popielata M, eds. Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Auditory Displays. Lodz, Poland: Lodz University of Technology Press; 2013: 167-174.After 18 ICAD conferences, Auditory Display has become a mature research community. However, a robust evaluation and scientific comparison of sonification methods is often neglected by auditory display researchers. In the last ICAD 2012 conference, only one paper out of 53 makes a statistical comparison of several sonification methods and still no comparison with other state-of-the-art algorithms is provided. In this paper, we review profitable standards in other communities and transfer them to derive recommendations and best practices for auditory display research. We describe SonEX (Sonification Evaluation eXchange), a community-based framework for the formal evaluation of sonification methods. The goals, challenges and architecture of this evaluation platform are discussed. In addition, a simple example of a task definition according to the guidelines of SonEX is also introduced. This paper aims at starting a vivid discussion towards the establishment of thorough scientific methodologies for auditory display research and the definition of standardized sonification tasks

Virtual reality platform for sonification evaluation

Presented at the 21st International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2015), July 6-10, 2015, Graz, Styria, Austria.In this paper we propose a game-based virtual reality platform for evaluation of sonification techniques. We study the task of localization of stationary objects in virtual reality using auditory cues. We further explore sonification techniques and compare the performance in this task using the proposed platform. The virtual reality environment is developed using Unity3D (game engine) and an Oculus Rift, a head mounted virtual reality display. Parameter mapping sonification techniques are employed to map the position of the object in virtual space to sound. Hence, the framework defined here constitutes an auditory virtual reality environment. This auditory display interface is subjectively evaluated in stationary object localization task. A statistical analysis of the subjective and objective measures of the listening test is performed resulting in a robust and scientific evaluation of the sonification methods

Eyes-Free Environmental Awareness for Navigation

El-Shimy D, Grond F, Olmos A, Cooperstock JR. Eyes-Free Environmental Awareness for Navigation. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces. 2012;5(3-4):131-141.We consider the challenge of delivering location-based information through rich audio representations of the environment, and the associated opportunities that such an approach offers to support navigation tasks. This challenge is addressed by In-Situ Audio Services, or ISAS, a system intended primarily for use by the blind and visually impaired communities. It employs spatialized audio rendering to convey the relevant content, which may include information about the immediate surroundings, such as restaurants, cultural sites, public transportation locations, and other points of interest. Information is aggregated mostly from online data resources, converted using text-to-speech technology, and ``displayed'', either as speech or more abstract audio icons, through a location-aware mobile device or smartphone. This is suitable not only for the specific constraints of the target population, but is equally useful for general mobile users whose visual attention is otherwise occupied with navigation. We designed and conducted an experiment to evaluate various techniques for delivering spatialized audio content to users via interactive auditory maps. The results of this experiment and its implications to our project are described here