Effectiveness of Choosing Dissonant Combination of Tones for Multivariate Data Sonification

In the present paper, additive syntheses of two tones are examined in order to look into what data-to-sound mapping design is better to acoustically communicate varying quantities of a multivariate system. The research focus is placed on the effectiveness of mappings for listeners to discriminate one variable component of sonified data from another. Dyads of pitches are tested through a couple of experiments where a special attention is paid to the “dissonance” of two tones. The first experiment investigates its effects on the perception of two static tones presented simultaneously. The second experiment investigates the effectiveness of choosing dissonant pitch combinations to sonify two quantities of a system being controlled manually. Experimental results demonstrate that the dissonance of tones can improve the perception of changes in individual variates out of a synthesized sound but that the frequency interval between two tones has stronger effects in dynamic situations.