Parameter-mapping sonification for manual control task: Timbre and intensity manupluration to sonify dynamic system state

This study empirically examines parameter-mapping sonifications which generate non-speech audio to represent the gap between the current and the desired state of the system being controlled. Focusing on manipulations of sound timbre and intensity, several data-to-sound mappings to transform the gap or system error into audible sound are compared in order to induce general knowledge of sonification design. Two experiments, using a one-dimensional tracking task, confirmed that timbre variation is useful in conveying categorical information about the target direction, and that scaling functions to produce no audible sound at the goal state with a relatively large dead zone are advantageous.