What determines auditory similarity? The effect of stimulus group and methodology.

Two experiments on the internal representation of auditory stimuli compared the pairwise and grouping methodologies as means of deriving similarity judgements. A total of 45 undergraduate students participated in each experiment, judging the similarity of short auditory stimuli, using one of the methodologies. The experiments support and extend Bonebright's (1996) findings, using a further 60 stimuli. Results from both methodologies highlight the importance of category information and acoustic features, such as root mean square (RMS) power and pitch, in similarity judgements. Results showed that the grouping task is a viable alternative to the pairwise task with N > 20 sounds whilst highlighting subtle differences, such as cluster tightness, between the different task results. The grouping task is more likely to yield category information as underlying similarity judgements

Data Collection and Analysis Techniques for Evaluating the Perceptual Qualities of Auditory Stimuli

This paper describes a general methodological framework for evaluating the perceptual properties of auditory stimuli. The framework provides analysis techniques that can ensure the effective use of sound for a variety of applications including virtual reality and data sonification systems. Specifically, we discuss data collection techniques for the perceptual qualities of single auditory stimuli including identification tasks, context-based ratings, and attribute ratings. In addition, we present methods for comparing auditory stimuli, such as discrimination tasks, similarity ratings, and sorting tasks. Finally, we discuss statistical techniques that focus on the perceptual relations among stimuli, such as Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) and Pathfinder Analysis. These methods are presented as a starting point for an organized and systematic approach for non-experts in perceptual experimental methods, rather than as a complete manual for performing the statistical techniques and data collection methods. It is our hope that this paper will help foster further interdisciplinary collaboration among perceptual researchers, designers, engineers, and others in the development of effective auditory displays

Managing formalization to increase global team effectiveness and meaningfulness of work in multinational organizations

Global teams may help to integrate across locations, and yet, with formalized rules and procedures, responsiveness to those locations’ effectiveness, and the team members’ experiences of work as meaningful may suffer. We employ a mixed-methods approach to understand how the level and content of formalization can be managed to resolve these tensions in multinationals. In a sample of global teams from a large mining and resources organization operating across 44 countries, interviews, observations, and a quantitative 2-wave survey revealed a great deal of variability between teams in how formalization processes were enacted. Only those formalization processes that promoted knowledge sharing were instrumental in improving team effectiveness. Implementing rules and procedures in the set-up of the teams and projects, rather than during interactions, and utilizing protocols to help establish the global team as a source of identity increased this knowledge sharing. Finally, we found members’ personal need for structure moderated the effect of team formalization on how meaningful individuals found their work within the team. These findings have significant implications for theory and practice in multinational organizations

Coordination Cost and Super-Efficiency in Teamwork: The Role of Communication, Psychological States, Cardiovascular Responses, and Brain Rhythms

To advance knowledge on the psychophysiological markers of “coordination cost” in team settings, we explored differences in meta-communication patterns (i.e., silence, speaking, listening, and overlap), perceived psychological states (i.e., core affect, attention, efficacy beliefs), heart rate variability (i.e., RMSSD), and brain rhythms (i.e., alpha, beta and theta absolute power) across three studies involving 48 male dyads (Mage = 21.30; SD = 2.03). Skilled participants cooperatively played three consecutive FIFA-17 (Xbox) games in a dyad against the computer, or competed against the computer in a solo condition and a dyad condition. We observed that playing in a team, in contrast to playing alone, was associated with higher alpha peak and global efficiency in the brain and, at the same time, led to an increase in focused attention as evidenced by participants’ higher theta activity in the frontal lobe. Moreover, we observed that overtime participants’ brain dynamics moved towards a state of “neural-efficiency” or “flow”, characterized by increased theta and beta activity in the frontal lobe, and high alpha activity across the whole brain. Our findings advance the literature by demonstrating that (1) the notion of coordination cost can be captured at the neural level in the initial stages of team development; (2) by decreasing the costs of switching between tasks, teamwork increases both individuals’ attentional focus and global neural efficiency; and (3) communication dynamics become more proficient and individuals’ brain patterns change towards neural efficiency over time, likely due to team learning and decreases in intra-team conflict

Testing the effectiveness of sonified graphs for education: A programmatic research project

Presented at the 7th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), Espoo, Finland, July 29-August 1, 2001.This programmatic research project builds on results from research on data sonification and from studies investigating comprehension of visual graphs. The purpose of the project is to explore the effectiveness of using sonified graphs of real data sets from disciplines to which students are exposed during academic courses. The primary question is whether sonified graphs can increase the comprehension of graphed data for students. The secondary question is whether stereo or monaural sonifications are most effective for graph comprehension. The third and final question of this project is whether sonified graphs with rhythm markers result in better comprehension than sonified graphs without them. The project consists of three laboratory experiments that explore whether students can match auditory representations with the correct visual graphs, whether they can comprehend graphed data sets more effectively by adding sonified components, and whether they can be trained to use sonified graphs better with practice. Results could provide new methods for teaching students with different learning styles quantitative skills in educational settings from kindergarten through college. They could also be extended to assist in teaching students with visual impairments about graphed data sets

Singing Function: Exploring Auditory Graphs with a Vowel Based Sonification

Grond F, Hermann T. Singing Function: Exploring Auditory Graphs with a Vowel Based Sonification. Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces. 2012;5(3-4):87-95.We present in this paper SingingFunction, a vowel-based sonification strategy for mathematical functions. Within the research field of auditory graphs as representation of scalar functions, we focus in SingingFunction on important aspects of sound design, which allow to better distinguish function shapes as auditory gestalts. SingingFunction features the first vowel-based synthesis for function sonification, and allows for a seamless integration of higher derivatives of the function into a single sound stream. We present further the results of a psycho physical experiment, where we compare the effectiveness of function sonifications based on either mapping only f'(x), or including hirarchically further information about the first derivatives f'(x), or the second derivative f''(x). Further we look at interactivity as an important factor and report interesting effects across all 3 sonification methods by comparing interactive explorations versus simple playback of sonified functions. Finally, we discuss SingingFunction within the context of existing function sonifications, and possible evaluation methods