The Use of Sound to Represent Data and Concepts as a Means to Engender Creative Thought: Some Thoughts on Implementation and a Research Agenda

This paper poses the question: How can sound be used to function analogously to the function of the images in a graph in order to create the conditions for creative thought and insight to occur and thus to facilitate the synthesis of new knowledge? It uses this to develop further questions and a research agenda. In particular, it is concerned with the use of sonification of the non-audio data and concepts represented in a diagram or graph and the techniques that might be used to foster a creative research environment using sound. The ultimate goal of the research agenda is to go beyond sonification and to use sound pro-actively in a Virtual Research Environment in order to create the conditions for creative thinking and insight to occur with the hope that this may then lead to the synthesis of new knowledge.