Effects of Training and Auditory Context on Performance of a Point Estimation Sonification Task

Research on auditory graphs has investigated mappings, scalings, and polarities (Walker, 2002), as well as the addition of some contextual design features (Bonebright, Nees, Connerley, & McCain, 2001; Flowers, Buhman, & Turnage, 1997), in order to improve performance. However, little has been done to quantify the performance effects of such features, or to investigate effects of training in specific sonification tasks such as point estimation. Smith and Walker (2002) took a step towards quantifying and comparing the effects of adding several contextual design features. Presented here are selected results from a comprehensive follow-on study comparing effects of adding auditory context, either with or without training. The overall results indicate that some kinds of auditory context improved performance, while others did not. Training improved performance, and an interaction was discovered between type of auditory context and type of training (Smith, 2003). Implications are discussed.

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