November 13, 2003

Doug Grafel, a senior psychology major, listens to a variety of sound renderings related to weather patterns as psychology professor John Flowers guides the computer through the sonification. Flowers and Grafel have been conducting research on ways to create sound interpretations of data. Photo by Brett Hampton.

Psychology research explores ways to turn data into sound

By Tom Hancock, Arts and Sciences

Have you heard the weather today? Some day your radio may give you weather information not only in spoken words but in musical notes that represent high and low temperatures, precipitation and other information.

Psychology Professor John Flowers and senior psychology major Doug Grafel conducted research on the "sonification" of data, which would display data through sound.

Flowers' interest in sonification began in 1989 when he had several blind and visually impaired students in his classes.

"While it's challenging to teach a course in perception to blind students," Flowers said, "it's even more challenging to teach a course on methodology and experimental design and statistics when you rely on visual aids, such as shapes or distributions." Even simple scatter plots showing the correlation between two variables, for example, are difficult to portray, he said. Even with fluency in Braille, many visually impaired people find data rendering slow, awkward and difficult to use.

So Flowers looked for an alternative way to present data normally presented visually. He experimented with portraying simple quantitative information, traditionally displayed in a graph or a chart, by sound. He mentioned this concept in a course on perception, and it piqued the students' interest.

Flowers then used sound to portray more complex forms of information, and he made a significant discovery: In some cases, people with good vision were getting more information out of the sound portrayal than they could get out of the more traditional graphical displays, and with nearly no practice on their part.

"So it became apparent that using sound to portray certain types of information is a natural way to present information," Flowers said. At the same time, computers were becoming better and better at rendering sound, making Flowers' experiments sound even better.

"Doug got interested in this when I showed examples of how this might work in class," Flowers said. "We decided to take data from an easy-to-get-at source: the High Plains Regional Climate Center."

Flowers tapped into School of Natural Resource Sciences Professor Ken Dewey's website, which has weather records for Lincoln going back to 1887. Because weather data comes in a format most people are familiar with, it provided a good test of the viability of sonification, Flowers said. He and Grafel set out to design a way to sonify high and low temperatures, as well as rain and snowfall for each day of a month.

Flowers and Grafel chose instruments to represent the kinds of weather data to be rendered, finally selecting piano notes to represent rain and dulcimer bells for snow. Because rain "falls," the piano notes would fall in pitch, while snow "piles up," so the dulcimer notes would rise. Synthetic strings were used for temperature.

A trace of precipitation is represented by a single "plink." More than 0.05 inch but less than 0.5 inch of rain becomes a two-note pattern for which the pitch drop is scaled and the second note is louder than the first. More than 0.5 inch becomes three notes that get louder with a falling pitch scaled between the first and last note. If more than 5 inches of rain fall in a day, the drop would be four octaves.

In contrast to rain, snow is portrayed with a pitch rise. For 1 inch or less of snow, a single note on the dulcimer instrument is sounded. For 1 inch to 2 inches, two notes are used. For 2 inches to 3 inches, there is still a two-note pattern, but with a pitch rise of a whole step. For amounts of 3 inches to 6 inches, there is a three-note pattern, and each 1-inch range of snow has a unique note pattern so the pitch rise is scaled to the amount. Amounts of greater than 6 inches have four-note patterns assigned to them, with a greater pitch rise for each successive 1-inch range. And if you hear a four-note, major arpeggio, school is probably out, since this corresponds to 10 to 11 inches of snow.

For temperature, the pitch of strings is scaled to represent the wide range of readings required for Nebraska's wide variance, from 33 degrees below 0 Fahrenheit to 115 above. The strings needed to be audible over a five-octave range of notes.

Flowers and Grafel then needed to find sounds that would work with a computer sound system with typical sound hardware and a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) synthesizer. Grafel carried out much of the experimental work, Flowers said, helping design the weather displays and adapting Visual Basic software routines to turn weather stats into MIDI files.

Experiments were performed with 80 participants. The subjects were asked to listen to a variety of sound renderings and explain how the patterns of sound related to the patterns of weather. Subjects were exposed to samples of Lincoln weather ranging from the Dust Bowl years to more recent time frames.

Through these tests, Flowers and Grafel were able to apply multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis to see what kinds of features were perceived in the renderings. They were also able to determine how well the renderings were related to important meteorological features such as total precipitation and temperature. The latest experiments showed that not only are people able to sort these things easily on the basis of important meteorological features, but they can do so about as easily as they can sort traditional graphical charts, Flowers said.

The experiments showed that the sound files need to be short enough, around 10 seconds, for people to remember the data they heard, Flowers said, so a lot of thought goes into the choice of sounds.

In his first year of research with Flowers, Grafel, then a sophomore, did the preliminary work of setting up the experiment. During his junior year, supported by UCARE, he spent more time working with research participants and collecting and analyzing data.

"Dr. Flowers and I were already beginning to do research together when the UCARE program was set up," Grafel said. "John suggested that it would be a way to get a little extra recognition for my work."

Flowers and another UCARE student will develop more applications for sonification next academic year.

Flowers said one application may be a Web site containing the climate from last month's worth of observation in Lincoln with representative previous months for comparison. Plans are to go away from MIDI files, which can sound different on different computers, to MP3, a popular compressed sound format, or to WAV, a broadly supported PC-based sound format. Users would be able to listen to the sound renderings by clicking on a computer icon.

There are many potential applications in addition to portraying weather data, Flowers said. Sonified data may let researchers more easily identify data that stand out as atypical of a certain trend. Repetitive patterns in data over time may be identified through recurring sound themes. In the medical domain, certain sounds could be linked to the status of certain monitors, so that a nurse or doctor would be able to tell, while their eyes are on another task, if certain steps should be taken with a patient. And software may be developed that can automatically turn a spreadsheet into sound.

Athletic, academic plans proposed

Initiative adds virology center building and athletic complex, renovates South Stadium

UNL officials have announced a major three-part initiative to increase research space on campus and renovate and add to Athletic Department facilities.

UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman said the projects totaling $65 million would result in a new building dedicated to virology research, renovated space for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and significant upgrades for the Athletic Department and Memorial Stadium.

The announcement was made jointly by Perlman, UNL Vice Chancellor for Research Prem Paul, and Athletic Director Steve Pederson at a Nov. 6 press conference at the Van Brunt Visitors Center.

The projects will be funded by a private fund-raising effort as part of the University of Nebraska Foundation's overall plan to address the university's building and academic priorities.

The Athletic Department, which receives no state funding or university fees, will launch a $40 million drive that will raise funds for new athletic facilities and will expand the seating capacity of Memorial Stadium to 80,000. The fund-raising drive begins immediately and calls for financial assistance from every Husker supporter, Pederson said.

Conceptual plans include a ground-level Performance Center that will be built within the current Schulte Field House at the north end of the stadium. The Performance Center will house strength training and conditioning facilities, reconditioning and rehabilitation stations and a nutrition center. The field level of the building will include the athletic medicine headquarters, a locker room and football equipment room. The third and fourth levels of the four-story Athletic Complex will house the football coaches and administrative offices.

"This project is focused on the people we care about the most, our student-athletes and our fans," Pederson said. "With this project, we will expand seating and improve game-day amenities for our fans, provide the best facilities for our coaches and student-athletes to teach and train, and present a beautiful and unique front door to recruits."

The Athletic Complex will be attached to a new indoor workout facility to be used by many Husker athletes. Two natural grass fields will be positioned between the new indoor workout facility and Cook Pavilion, the indoor workout field built with the Sapp Recreation Center in 1987.

After moving the Athletic Department offices to the new facility in North Stadium, the South Stadium office building will be used by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Valued at about $10 million, this is the second gift of $10 million or more from the Athletic Department to UNL academic facilities. The athletic department also contributed $14.9 million to the Sapp Recreation Center in 1987 and donates $1.5 million each year to academic programs.

"The Athletic Department has been a valuable partner in carrying out the academic mission of this university," Perlman said.

The South Stadium building is next to Avery Hall, which is under renovation to house some computer science and engineering research and education activities. The conversion of South Stadium will relieve overcrowding in computer science and engineering courses and labs.

"We've actually had students standing in line to get a space in a computer lab, and had to turn away many students who wanted to enroll in computer science classes due to lack of capacity," said Richard Sincovec, chairman of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

"This will go a long way in alleviating those space concerns. It will also allow us to move the PrairieFire Super Computer, now housed in leased space in the Miller & Paine Building in downtown Lincoln, to the campus, where it will be more accessible to faculty and students."

A second component of the overall plan calls for a new virology building, to be built on East Campus, to take advantage of infrastructure already in place and to locate the scientists near other researchers on that campus. The building, which would cost an estimated $15 million, is the first phase of an initiative to build more research space for a growing number of federally funded research projects at UNL.

The George W. Beadle Center for Genetics and Biomaterials Research, dedicated in 1995, is bursting at the seams, Paul said. Several large research teams work in the Beadle Center, including scientists in the Nebraska Center for Virology. Those scientists study viruses that cause a variety of diseases, and the center's scientists hold more than $19 million in federal grants to study viruses and virus-related cancers, Paul said.

"The investment in a new virology building will benefit Nebraska's economy and add to our growing reputation as a leader in research," Paul said.

Perlman said the joint announcement is unique and historic.

"This announcement represents a collective effort to leverage our successes and create powerful opportunities that benefit the entire university," he said. "I fully recognize that obtaining state funding for any of these projects is unlikely; nonetheless these facilities are critical to the success of the programs they house and they represent our hope that we can secure donor support, and in some instances, federal funds to make each of these a reality."

More information More information can be found at <www.huskers.com>.

Israeli peace leader, author to lecture

Amos Oz, a leader in the Israeli peace movement and one of Israel's best-known authors, will speak at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 18 as part of the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues lecture series. The lecture, titled "Israel: Peace and War," is free and open to the public in the main auditorium of the Lied Center for Performing Arts.

Oz is Israel's most distinguished literary figure and a founding member of Israel's Peace Now movement.

Oz's reputation in his occasionally controversial literary career was established nearly 40 years ago with his first book, Where the Jackals Howl. Many of his subsequent novels have been critically acclaimed best-sellers in Israel and around the world, including his best known work, My Michael, and Black Box.

He is the author of 11 novels, three volumes of nonfiction and a children's book. He devotes his time to writing, teaching and campaigning for the Israeli peace movement.

Oz served as a reserve soldier with a tank unit on the Sinai Front during the 1967 "Six Day War" and also served in the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. Since the 1967 war, Oz has published many essays and works about the Israeli-Arab conflict, campaigning for an Israeli-Palestinian compromise to be based on mutual recognition and co-existence between Israel and a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. As one of the leading figures of the Israeli Peace Movement, he has become a well-known international spokesman whose works have been published in 34 languages worldwide.

Two opportunities to learn more about the speaker have been scheduled. A student-led forum will begin at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 17 in the Nebraska Union. Students Kelsey Doty and Noushan Noureddini will facilitate this free event.

A talk before Oz's lecture Nov. 18, led by Ophira Bahar, will begin at 3 p.m. in the Lied Center's Steinhart Room. Bahar is a native of Haifa, Israel, who has taught Hebrew in Lincoln and at UNL. She has lived in the United States for 40 years and has degrees from UNL.

This lecture, which is also part of the Kripke Lecture Series, is co-sponsored by the Thompson Forum and UNL's Norman and Bernice Harris Center for Judaic Studies and the Lincoln Jewish Federation. Oz will also speak at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 19 at Omaha's Temple Israel, 7023 Cass St. Oz will read selections from his work and reminisce about his literary and political careers. That talk, delivered as the Annual Kripke Lecture Series, is co-sponsored by UNL's Harris Center for Judaic Studies, the Hermene Zweiback Center for Lifelong Jewish Learning and the Philip G. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University.

The E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues is a cooperative project of the Cooper Foundation, the Lied Center for Performing Arts and UNL.

Thompson lectures are presented free at the Lied Center and are broadcast live at <www.unl.edu>, on Lincoln cable channel 21, UNL's KRNU radio station at 90.3 FM, UNL campus TV, the NebSat system, and at satellite sites in Scottsbluff, Norfolk, Grand Island and North Platte. (Subject to change without notice.)

For more information on other E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues lectures, visit <www.unl.edu/unlpu b/special/thompsonforum/>, <www.cooperfoundation.org>, or <www.liedcenter.org>.