An Acoustic Communication Framework for Game Sound - Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments - page 133

traffic, and white noise mask other sound signals
and obstruct clear aural communication, creating
a low signal-to-noise ratio (Truax, 2001, p. 23).
Following Schafer's work, Truax developed a
multi-disciplinary framework for understanding
sound based on notions of acoustic ecology as
well as communication theory. This framework
models sound, listener and environment in a holis-
tic interconnected system, where the soundscape
mediates a two-way relationship between listener
and environment (Truax, 2001, p. 12). It also places
importance on the role of context in the process
of listening, emphasizing the listener's ability to
extract meaningful information from the content,
qualities, and structure of the sound precisely
by situating this process in their knowledge and
familiarity with the context and environment
(p. 12). Yet Truax also recognizes listening as a
product of cultural and technological advances,
subject to macro shifts and patterns over time.
Such a multi-disciplinary understanding of sound
allows us to bring socio-cultural considerations
into the soundscape paradigm alongside auditory
perception and cognition.
Traditional models of auditory perception
conceptualize listening as a process of neural
transmission of incoming vibrations to the brain
(Cook, 1999) that, shaped by our physiology, al-
lows us to experience sound qualities. In fact, as
pointed out by Truax (2001) and others, listening
is a complex activity involving multi-level and
dynamically shifting attention, as well as higher
cognitive functions (inevitably dependent on
context) such as memory associations, template
matching, and foregrounding and backgrounding
of sound (p. 11). Again, this model points to the
importance of understanding listening as a physi-
ological as well as a cultural and social practice.
From a design perspective, it is also imperative
to understand that listening is a dynamic and
fluid activity that in turn affects the perception
and experience of sounds in the acoustic or
electroacoustic environment and helps mediate
the relationship between actor, activity, context

and environment. Two major classifications of
listening are everyday listening as put forward
by Gaver (1994, p. 426) —an omni-directional,
semi-distracted, adaptive-interactive listening that
focuses on immediate information-processing
of sound-and analytic listening (Truax, 2001, p.
163) —listening that has attention to detail and
which is an expert activity focused on an aesthetic
or analytical experience of sound that is rooted in
context as its frame of reference for the extrac-
tion of information from sound characteristics.
Based on the idea of different classifications of
listening, Truax developed a number of categories
exemplifying major listening modes and processes
(pp. 21-27): see Table 1.
Clearly, this ontology of listening needs a
significant degree of modification in order to fit
the complexities of listening in gameplay contexts,
and we will continue returning, adding to, and
re-conceptualizing the idea of listening positions
with regard to game soundscapes. This set of
listening types is simply a beginning, allowing us
a way to access the historical evolution of listen-
ing stances as media, technology, and design have
changed. These types of listening, as part of the
acoustic communication framework, directly
represent macro shifts in the historical and cul-
tural reality of acoustic, electroacoustic, and
media listening, and, as an extension, game listen-
ing. In analyzing game sound then, this set of
listening attentions is to be amended in a similar
fashion to uncover and elucidate macro shifts
directly procured by the socio-historical experi-
ence of sound in games.
The notions of fidelity, verisimilitude, and
ecology are a particular choice too, yet the con-
cept and drive towards realism is one that I see
as not only one aspect of game design and game
culture but a more symbolic movement intersect-
ing many media genres and technologies. Rather
than simply a design requirement, it is an ideology
of contemporary mediated expressions. Examples
span from immersive cinematic soundscapes for
the big screen and surround sound aesthetics