When it sounds like a duck and it looks like a dog... Auditory icons vs. earcons in multimedia environments

Abstract

In this research a categorization paradigm is used to study the multimodal integration processes that take place when working with an interface. Redundant auditory icons are used with visual information to investigate their influence on the categorization. Results are related to earlier experiments with redundant earcons and show that reaction times are faster in conditions with auditory icons than conditions with no sound, and conditions with earcons are slower than conditions with no sound. Having sound does not always lead to faster responses. It seems that the type of sound and its congruency with visual information can have an effect.