An exploration of volumetric data in auditory space

The reduced behavior for the exploration of volumetric data based on the virtual sectioning concept was examined using three sonification techniques in the absence of visual feedback. Using a three-alternative forced choice procedure, the subjects explored five experimental sets of the virtual top projection of volumetric shapes with different levels of complexity (gradient-based surface discontinuity). The subjects had to explore auditory space and identify the target-the modified shape's projection, which was different from two others (non-rotated and rotated images). An analysis of the performance of 12 subjects demonstrated that the strongly synchronized merged information of blended chords does not allow reliance on inherent mechanisms to focus on and retrieve separate components of an auditory image in the sound flow. The redundancy of free scanning in auditory space, even enhanced by a self-guided strategy, overloaded the listeners and did not allow the establishment of the right relations between successive sound samples separated in space and time. The high sensitivity of the cross-sectional scanning technique to modify and change the orientation of the virtual objectswas achieved by optimizing the interaction with data in auditory space. The methodwas developed for the alternative visualization of spatially distributed data collected by sensors.