Semio-acoustics: a domain of communication acoustics
Ute Jekosch · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2008
For user-oriented design of modern information and communication systems we investiate the perception of acoustic signals as sign carriers: How do listeners process acoustic/auditory events when they treat them as information carriers and which meaning do they associate with them? Sign carriers (in our case the acoustic signals) transport information across space and time. When being perceived, they are decoded, analyzed and interpreted with regard to their cultural meaning and their relevance for the actual living and communication situation. These processes are universal to a certain degree. It is the aim of our research in Dresden to investigate the fundamental structures and organisational principles underlying this assignment of meaning to acoustic and their accompanying auditory events. In this talk, some semio-acoustic paradigms will be introduced. As a Ph.D. student of Jens Blauerts' and as a post doc in his team, the semio-acoustic approach has developed as a logical continuation of his way of thinking, of his research approaches, and of his scientific goals, based on and fed by his basic statement: Communication acoustics is not conceivable without audition, and only if we are able to understand auditory events, and even cognitive processes, we are able to make use of acoustic communication and information technology in a user-friendly way.