Sonification of sound: Auditory display for acoustics education

Sonification is concerned with data representation to the ear using nonspeech audio. While auralization is routinely used in architectural acoustics, the broader processes encompassed by sonification are not so commonly applied, but can enhance the appreciation of acoustical properties of materials and structures, audio signals, and acoustic system measurements. We present examples of sonifications such as (i) auditory graphs of reflection and transmission coefficients and reverberation times; (ii) auditory graphs of percentiles and moments, applied to time-varying sound levels and to magnitude spectra; (iii) conditioning of room impulse responses for sonification using techniques such as time stretching, signal reversal, filtering and auto-convolution/correlation; (iv) sonification of complex frequency response or signal spectra; and (v) applications of the Hilbert transform for audio signal sonification. Compared to graphic or numeric representation, such sonifications have the advantage of providing an aural experience of the aspect of sound that is sonified, and so directly convey to a listener something of the meaning of the data.