Exploring Interactive Systems Using Peripheral Sounds

Abstract

Abstract. Our everyday interaction in and with the physical world, has facilitated the development of auditory perception skills that enable us to selectively place one auditory channel in the center of our attention and simultaneously monitor others in the periphery. We search for ways to leverage these auditory perception skills in interactive systems. In this paper, we present three working demonstrators that use sound to subtly convey information to users in an open office. To qualitatively evaluate these demonstrators, each of them has been implemented in an office for three weeks. We have seen that such a period of time, sounds can start shifting from the center to the periphery of the attention. Furthermore, we found several issues to be addressed when designing such systems, which can inform future work in this area.

Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment

“…In contrast, Status Information is unidirectional, and may involve human-machine as well as human-human connections (note that the elderly relatives using the Internet Tea Kettle do not make tea in order to communicate this fact to their family members). Other examples are the Data Fountain [5] and Smart Umbrella [28]. 1.2 Information Distance represents, for social information, the social distance between the information source and the receiver.…”

“…Actuators. In our examples, (LED) lamps are used [9,18], dimmers [15], speakers [3], in-flatable components for haptic sensations [24,21], motors [30], vibraton motors [10,22,3,16], heaters [23,26], also using bimetall [22], and pumps [5,17]. Sensors in the examples measure quantities such as location (GPS), displacement (accelerometers, distance sensors), presence of objects (RFID), sound intensity, light intensity, temperature, humidity, pressure (touch, air pressure, height), or time (DCF, GPS).…”

Exploring internet CO 2 emissions as an auditory display

“…The authors investigated the use of sound effects, music, and voice "to connect a person's activities in the physical world with information culled from the virtual world" (Back, Mynatt & Want, 1998). Bakker, Hoven and Eggen (2010) used synthetic and nature sounds to "leverage auditory perception skills in interactive systems" by testing three working prototypes that "subtly convey information to users in an open office" (Bakker, Hoven & Eggen, 2010). Mauney & Walker's sonification system focused on "dynamically rendering sonifications of real-time stock market data" (Mauney & Walker, 2004).…”

Talking tangibles

“…RainForecasts played sound samples indicating the short term rain forecasts. These systems were each implemented in an office for three weeks [1]. Although these demonstrators did not involve tangible interaction, their evaluation revealed interesting insights for further design and evaluation of Talking Tangibles.…”