Evaluating the Impact of Sonification in an Immersive Analytics Environment Using Real-World Geophysical Datasets

In this paper, we evaluated the impact of audio in an immersive analytics environment using real-world geophysical datasets. We specifically used sonification, i.e., the use of non-speech audio to convey information. To evaluate the impact of sonification, we designed a between-subject experiment in a mixed-reality environment and conducted a user study with 50 participants in two scenarios: Audio-Visual and Visual-Only. In the study, we compared task metrics such as the number of patterns identified by the participants, the level of confidence, participants’ task responses, the NASA task load index, and the SUS questionnaire between each scenario to study the role of sonification in augmenting the analysis process in an immersive environment. We found that event-based sonification, used in addition to the visual channel, is helpful in finding patterns and relations in geophysical datasets. Our results also suggest that using audio in immersive analytics might increase users’ confidence in performing analytics tasks such as pattern finding. Using real-world datasets, we identified the advantages and limitations of using sonification in an immersive analytics context.