Sara Lenzi | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

The role of sound and auditory displays in telescope control rooms: a pilot study

Astronomers are often stereotyped as gazing at the stars. Today, they mainly visually inspect digital data they receive from telescopes in remote observatories. One of the most complex is the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. Multiple streams of information converge in the VLT control room, where telescopes and instruments are managed, with operators handling numerous tasks on dozens of screens in a challenging environment, marked by harsh geography, intense work rhythms, and isolation. Sound and sonification can represent an efficient novel means for data monitoring with efficiency and operator wellness in mind. We present insights from a qualitative pilot study aimed at assessing the current use of sound in the VLT control room to identify directions for the design of new auditory displays. Based on the analysis of questionnaires and interviews with VLT personnel, we identify the key characteristics of the current use of sound and describe opportunities for improved design strategies to integrate auditory displays in telescope control rooms to support decision-making, improve situational awareness, and reduce cognitive load.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2024

Open Your Ears and Take a Look: A State-of-the-Art Report on the Integration of Sonification and Visualization

The research communities studying visualization and sonification for data display and analysis share exceptionally similar goals, essentially making data of any kind interpretable to humans. One community does so by using visual representations of data, and the other community employs auditory (non-speech) representations of data. While the two communities have a lot in common, they developed mostly in parallel over the course of the last few decades. With this STAR, we discuss a collection of work that bridges the borders of the two communities, hence a collection of work that aims to integrate the two techniques into one form of audiovisual display, which we argue to be "more than the sum of the two." We introduce and motivate a classification system applicable to such audiovisual displays and categorize a corpus of 57 academic publications that appeared between 2011 and 2023 in categories such as reading level, dataset type, or evaluation system, to mention a few. The corpus also enables a meta-analysis of the field, including regularly occurring design patterns such as type of visualization and sonification techniques, or the use of visual and auditory channels, showing an overall diverse field with different designs. An analysis of a co-author network of the field shows individual teams without many interconnections. The body of work covered in this STAR also relates to three adjacent topics: audiovisual monitoring, accessibility, and audiovisual data art. These three topics are discussed individually in addition to the systematically conducted part of this research. The findings of this report may be used by researchers from both fields to understand the potentials and challenges of such integrated designs while hopefully inspiring them to collaborate with experts from the respective other field.

cs.HC↗