Sonification for Conveying Data and Emotion

In the present study a sonification of running data was evaluated. The aim of the sonification was to both convey information about the data and convey a specific emotion. The sonification was evaluated in three parts, firstly as an auditory graph, secondly together with additional text information, and thirdly together with an animated visualization, with a total of 150 responses. The results suggest that the sonification could convey an emotion similar to that intended, but at the cost of less good representation of the data. The addition of visual information supported understanding of the sonification, and the auditory representation of data. The results thus suggest that it is possible to design sonification that is perceived as both interesting and fun, and convey an emotional impression, but that there may be a trade off between musical experience and clarity in sonification.