MFP Update - Weekly Diary

Weekly Diary

Week Beginning	Activity	Key Findings
29/07/13	Participant Testing	Last weeks testing highlighted issues with the three variations of the x/y prototypes. Firstly the webcam interface proved to be an inaccurate way of controlling an audio-only game, especially for visually impaired users. It soon became apparent that the webcam interface was not needed to understand what the best method of locating a sound in 2D space, and in some cases slowed the process down significantly. There was a high percentage of results showing that a sound was not found. This suggests that the participant either could not memorize the intended sound to be found or they had difficulty navigating their tracked colour to the required area of the grid. An example of the three variations can be found at bottom of this post
	Reading List	Stevens, S. S. (1935). The relation of pitch to intensity. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 6, 150–154. Stevens, S. S. & Davis, H. (1938). Hearing: Its psychology and physiology. Oxford, England: Wiley. Walker, B. N. (2002). Magnitude estimation of conceptual data dimensions for use in sonification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8, 4, 211–221. Walker, B. N. (2007). Consistency of magnitude estimations with conceptual data dimensions used for sonification. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 21(5), 579–599. Walker, B. N., & Ehrenstein, A. (2000). Pitch and pitch change interact in auditory displays. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 6, 15–30. Walker, B. N., Nance, A., & Lindsay, J. (2006). Spearcons: Speech-based Earcons Improve Navigation Performance in Auditory Menus. Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display, 63–68. Walker, B. N., & Lane, D. M. (2001). Psychophysical scaling of sonification mappings: A comparison of visually impaired and sighted listeners. Proceedings of the International Conference on Auditory Display, 90–94. Walker, B. N., & Kramer, G. (2004). Ecological psychoacoustics and auditory displays: Hearing, grouping, and meaning making. In J. Neuhoff (Ed.), Ecological Psychoacoustics (pp.150–175). New York: Academic Press. Hermann, T., Hunt, A. and Neuhoff, J.G., 2011. The Sonification Handbook. 1st ed. Berlin: Logos Publishing House
	New prototype	The three prototypes confirmed the research surrounding pitch and concluded that individuals musical background affects perception of audio. The next prototypes intend to take the findings of Walker and colleagues and developing a game for the blind - based around locating a sound in 2d space.
	Details of current state of practical	The project has began to focus on a more established end product, which will be an audio-only game for the blind that adopts the research surrounding auditory dimensions. I am using the previous three prototypes as a base layer to expand and develop further into a fully working audio-only game. Game Features Spoken dialogue - Voice actor - Explain instructions Button and Mouse controls - Tracks the movement of the mouse in relation to screen - Audio is only produced when clicked or clicked & dragged - Space bar to start level - Questionnaire at the end will utilise buttons 1-5 Audio-only version of battleships - Hear the enemy battleship's sonar - Use your computer equipment to locate and destroy the enemy ship Sound Effects - Sounds effects (and dialogue) used to provide occasional audio feedback Max/Msp - On opening the game, a jit.window is opened in full-screen - This is creates a blank visual for the player, ensuring there is no visual advantage to those who are able sighted.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4hnwrd43xaqheso/Participant%20Testing%202.zip