Perception of Sonified Daily Weather Records

Abstract

Human participants performed a perceptual task in which they sorted auditory (musical) displays of one-month long daily weather summaries (temperature, rainfall, and snowfall) based on perceived similarity of weather patterns. Displays for fifteen winter months and fifteen summer months were sorted by separate groups of participants. Each group sorted two sets of displays that varied in presentation speed. Multidimensional scaling analyses indicated that these displays were effective in conveying weather features important for climate comparisons for both winter and summer months, and that the faster (7.1 sec) displays were more effective than the slower (14.2 sec) displays. These results show that sonification can be an effective tool for exploring multivariate time series data, but that optimization of such displays may require consideration of the temporal constraints of auditory sensory memory and working memory.