“Sound” alternatives to visual graphics for exploratory data analysis

Efficient exploratory data analysis (EDA) may be aided by succinct, but informative, graphical representations (e.g., Tukey plots) that convey information about central tendency, variability, and shape of distributions, and that permit detection of outliers. Using research strategies adapted from studies of cross-modal perceptual equivalence, we show how auditory analogies of such displays may offer an effective alternative to visual plots for EDA.