A Brief History of Auditory Data Representation to the 1980s

Abstract

The field of Auditory Data Representation, which addresses the representation of quantitative data through the use of auditory, rather than visual, displays, has seen considerable activity in the last twenty years. On the occasion of the first Symposium on Auditory Graphs it is well to consider the roots of this field. This paper presents a brief history of the field, leading up to the beginning of the 1980s, and accompanies a demonstration of a multivariate time series representation developed by the author and his colleagues in 1980.