Determine the direction of the relationship between semiotic and affective auditory associations

Determine whether participants related auditory qualities to semiotic associations that had an affective component, or instead associated auditory qualities with affect that subsequently led to semiotic associations, in sonifications for uncertainty and neutrality visualizations.

Background

The paper observes that participants connected auditory qualities with both affective components, such as eeriness and boredom, and abstract or semiotic concepts, such as strangeness and predictability. Because these types of associations frequently appeared together, the authors identify an unresolved issue concerning their causal or interpretive direction.

Resolving this question would clarify whether affective responses mediate the interpretation of auditory sonification mappings as signs of concepts such as uncertainty, or whether participants first interpret auditory qualities semiotically and then experience an associated affect. This distinction is relevant to designing sonifications that communicate both uncertainty as data and its emotional context.