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Psychoacoustic auditory display for navigation: an auditory assistance system for spatial orientation tasks

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Abstract

A psychoacoustic auditory display for navigation is presented. Interactive sonification guides users to an invisible target location in two-dimensional space. Orthogonal spatial dimensions are mapped to perceptual auditory qualities that are orthogonal as well. The psychoacoustic auditory display could serve as an alternative or complement to conventional assistance systems for vehicle or airplane control, or for minimally invasive surgery. The approach is evaluated by an experiment, which compares the performance of 18 participants approaching (i) a visually presented target (ii) an invisible target guided by sound. Results demonstrate that users are able to integrate the sonified information to find the right angle and distance, or to segregate both spatial axes and interpret one at a time. Auditory navigation takes significantly longer than visual navigation, but path lengths are not significantly different.

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  1. Bremen Spatial Cognition Center, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Tim Ziemer & Holger Schultheis

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  1. Tim Ziemer
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Ziemer, T., Schultheis, H. Psychoacoustic auditory display for navigation: an auditory assistance system for spatial orientation tasks. J Multimodal User Interfaces 13, 205–218 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12193-018-0282-2

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