Sonification design must match data variation to the minimum audible change.

Evidence

The underlying principle behind sonification is to take advantage of the perceptual processing power of the human hearing system to detect changes in or relationships between measured data sets. A key element of success in this process is deciding on the mapping between the measured data and the final audio signal. Ideally, the mapping should take advantage of changes in the audio signal that are going to be obvious to the listener; pitch, loudness and timbre are three potential candidates. But consideration must also be given to the signal itself, since (a) it might be the raw data itself, perhaps with the sampling rate being changed to place it within the human hearing range (data can be captured at any sampling rate, which could be well below or above what is audible, such as weather data that might be captured once every 24 hours or engine telemetry data that might be captured once every microsecond), or (b) the measured data could be used to change a feature of the sound to be used such as its pitch, vibrato, loudness or a filter setting. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2690 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Sonification renders time-varying data through pitch and timbre changes; Sonification maps measured data onto audible changes exploiting auditory perception — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2690; Minimum Audible Angle measures the smallest discriminable angular change — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3052 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• The just-noticeable difference quantifies the smallest audible change in a sound #corroborates (0.90)
• Sonification maps measured data onto audible changes exploiting auditory perception #corroborates (0.85) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2690
• Sonification renders time-varying data through pitch and timbre changes #expands (0.80)
• Minimum Audible Angle measures the smallest discriminable angular change #qualifies (0.75) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3052
• The minimum audible angle quantifies the just-detectable change in sound source position #qualifies (0.75)
• The decibel unit is calibrated to the smallest perceivable loudness change #qualifies (0.72) — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 181