Sound Terminology in Sonification

Abstract

Sonification research is intrinsically interdisciplinary. Consequently, a proper documentation of and interdisciplinary discourse about a sonification is often hindered by terminology discrepancies between involved disciplines, i.e., the lack of a common sound terminology in sonification research. Without a common ground, a researcher from one discipline may have trouble understanding the implementation and imagining the resulting sound perception of a sonification, if the sonification is described by a researcher from another discipline. To find a common ground, the author consulted literature on interdisciplinary research and discourse, identified problems that occur in sonification, and applied the recommended solutions. As a result, the author recommends considering three aspects of sonification individually, namely 1) Sound Design Concept, 2) Objective, and 3) Evaluation, clarifying which discipline is involved in which aspect and sticking to this discipline’s terminology. As two requirements of sonifications are that they are a) reproducible and b) interpretable, the author recommends documenting and discussing every sonification design once using audio engineering terminology and once using psychoacoustic terminology. The appendixes provide comprehensive lists of sound terms from both disciplines, together with relevant literature and a clarification of often misunderstood and misused terms.