Data sonification is the presentation of data as sound usingsonification. It is the auditory equivalent of the more established practice ofdata visualization.
The usual process for data sonification is directing digital media of a dataset through asoftware synthesizer and into adigital-to-analog converter to produce sound for humans to experience.[1][2][3] Benefits to interpreting data through sonification include accessibility, pattern recognition, education, and artistic expression.[4]
Applications of data sonification include astronomy studies of star creation,[5] interpretingcluster analysis,[6] and geoscience.[7] Various projects describe the production of sonifications as a collaboration between scientists and musicians.[8][4][9]
A target demographic for using data sonification is the blind community because of the inaccessibility of data visualizations.[10]
One of the earliest examples of data sonification is theGeiger counter, which measures ionizing radiation through sound.[11] Another notable example of data sonification isNASA's processing of images from space telescopes into sounds.[12]
^Hermann, T; Ritter, H (1999). "Listen to your Data: Model-Based Sonification for Data Analysis".Advances in intelligent computation and multimedia systems. International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.ISBN0-921836-80-5.
^Zhao, Haixia; Plaisant, Catherine; Shneiderman, Ben; Lazar, Jonathan (1 May 2008). "Data Sonification for Users with Visual Impairment".ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction.15 (1):1–28.doi:10.1145/1352782.1352786.S2CID17199537.
