The Handbook of Sonification summary

The "Handbook of Sonification" has been read completely during the first research period of the master project. In the following days, all  notes and take aways from this extraordinary work about data sonification will be gathered and evaluated.

The book is structured into four main sections:

1. Fundamentals of Sonification, Sound and Perception
2. Sonification Technology
3. Sonification Techniques
4. Applications

Each section contains various chapters. Before the first section is an introduction, pointing out the potential of Sonification, the major vision of the field and gives suggestions how to read the book. Each section and their chapters will be evaluated in future blog posts.

The book provides a tremendous amount of information about data, sonification and psycho acoustics from a theoretical and practical perspective as well as practical evaluations of auditory displays. Moreover, very valuable information is given on the gaps that have not been covered by scientific researches yet.

Below is the full table of contents of the book, including the authors of each chapter:



1 Introduction
Thomas Hermann, Andy Hunt, John G. Neuhoff


I Fundamentals of Sonification, Sound and Perception


2 Theory of Sonification
Bruce N. Walker and Michael A. Nees

3 Psychoacoustics
Simon Carlile

4 Perception, Cognition and Action in Auditory Displays
John G. Neuhoff

5 Sonic Interaction Design
Stefania Serafin, Karmen Franinovi´c, Thomas Hermann,
Guillaume Lemaitre, Michal Rinott, Davide Rocchesso

6 Evaluation of Auditory Display
Terri L. Bonebright and John H. Flowers

7 Sonification Design and Aesthetics
Stephen Barrass and Paul Vickers


II Sonification Technology


8 Statistical Sonification for Exploratory Data Analysis
Sam Ferguson, William Martens and Densil Cabrera

9 Sound Synthesis for Auditory Display
Perry R. Cook

10 Laboratory Methods for Experimental Sonification
Till Bovermann, Julian Rohrhuber and Alberto de Campo

11 Interactive Sonification
Andy Hunt and Thomas Hermann


III Sonification Techniques


12 Audification
Florian Dombois and Gerhard Eckel

13 Auditory Icons
Eoin Brazil and Mikael Fernström

14 Earcons
David McGookin and Stephen Brewster

15 Parameter Mapping Sonification
Florian Grond, Jonathan Berger

16 Model-Based Sonification
Thomas Hermann


IV Applications


17 Auditory Display in Assistive Technology
Alistair D. N. Edwards

18 Sonification for Process Monitoring
Paul Vickers

19 Intelligent auditory alarms
Anne Guillaume

20 Navigation of Data
Eoin Brazil and Mikael Fernström

21 Aiding Movement with Sonification in “Exercise, Play and Sport”
Edited by Oliver Höner

Reading the "Handbook of Sonification" while commuting to work