A Natural Sonification Mapping for Handwriting

Abstract

The sonification of handwriting has been shown effective in various learning tasks. In this paper, the authors investigate the sound design used for handwriting interaction based on a simple and cost-efficient prototype. The authentic interaction sound is compared with physically informed sonification designs that employ either natural or inverted mapping. In an experiment, participants copied text and drawings. The authors found simple measures of the structure-borne audio signal that showed how participants were affected in their movements, but only when drawing. In contrast, participants rated the sound features differently only for writing. The authentic interaction sound generally scored best, followed by a natural sonification mapping.