Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
-
Communication
: interval of notes played by a horn (reference to the hunting
horn, used by postal couriers during the 19
th
Century).
-
Navigation
: imitation of the icon by means of string instruments (cello, violin)
played pizzicato and flute chord which is held to make the sound of a boat's
foghorn.
-
Vehicle
: imitation of the car horn by an ensemble of trombones and horns.
-
Music
: very well known musical phrase played on the flute (despite the
difficulty of “representing music with music”).
-
Images
: imitation of the icon by means of strings played pizzicato, of
percussions and violin glissandos.
-
Videos
: musical phrase referring to an old Hollywood film (in this case, “As
time goes by” taken from
Casablanca
, the 1942 American film).
The part relative to earcons in this second solution (museme) is carried out
according to a standard “parameter mapping” type approach:
- the vertical depth is established both by the reduction of the duration
(acceleration of the tempo) and lowering of the pitch of notes (change of the
respective range of each instrument);
- horizontal scrolling is established in a more subtle way by modification of the
musical content (change of the color of chords - minor/major - or simply notes).
8.5. Evaluation protocols: general evaluation methods
In the process of auditory design, the analysis of needs and evaluation of results
require rigorous experimental approaches. This section initially presents the
paradigms generally used in the domain of the evaluation of auditory stimuli, then
the problems posed by situations of auditory interaction and finally the methods
more specifically used in the context of studies on the sonification of hierarchical
menus, which come from studies presented in section 8.3.
8.5.1.
Generality regarding the experimental evaluation approaches of auditory
stimuli
Just as for other sensory modalities, the experimental approaches in the auditory
domain relate to different fields, such as psychophysics or cognitive psychology. On
the basis of two recent and detailed reviews on the matter, ([GIO 11], [SUS 11]),
this part offers a summary of the different methods made available to the
experimenter to probe the phenomena linked to auditory perception.
