Alison Crerar’s research while affiliated with Edinburgh Napier University and other places

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Publications (15)


Figure 2. Floor plan of School of Computing Office with fixed objects (bookcases, computers, desks, filing cabinets, water dispenser, worktop) and microphone positions (mic 1-8). 
Figure 4. Soundfield and Soundscape map representing new inhabitants’ responses. 
Figure 5. Magnified area of Soundfield and Soundscape map representing new inhabitants' responses.
Figure 6. Magnified area of Soundfield and Soundscape map representing regular inhabitants' responses (Identical coordinates to Figure 5).
Visualising the soundfield and soundscape: extending Macaulay and Crerar's 1998 method.
  • Article
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June 2008

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177 Reads

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2 Citations

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Alison Crerar

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The introduction of effective auditory warnings into a shared environment requires a prior understanding of the existing soundfield and soundscape. Reifying the physical and perceptual auditory environment enables a form of pre-auditioning, as well as the evaluation of any auditory augmentation. This paper describes the development of a visualisation technique for soundscape mapping. Building on earlier published work in sound classification, we report data captured using eighteen participants in a shared office environment. The resulting sound classification is used as the basis of a pictorial soundscape and soundfield visualisation. We show how this representation can be used to model the experiences of individuals, as well as subsets of users of the space.

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Establishing Key Dimensions for Reifying Soundfields and Soundcapes from Auditory Professionals

June 2007

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37 Reads

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6 Citations

This paper presents a unique insight into the way acousticians, computing specialists and sound designers describe the dimensions of sound they use. Seventy-five audio professionals completed a detailed questionnaire created to elicit common definitions of the words noise and soundscape, and to establish common methods of reifying sound, architectural acoustics and hearing abilities. The responses in have contributed to a better understanding of sound from a practitioner’s perspective, the impact of the physical environment on sound perception and also effects experienced by those with hearing difficulties. We report a method of data analysis and that is appropriate for use by diverse groups of professionals engaged in the design and evaluation of auditory displays for shared environments. This research suggests that a far simpler approach to the measurement and evaluation of sounds and soundscapes is practiced than might be assumed from studying the exhaustive lists of measures and methods detailed in current textbooks and published standards.


table 3). 
Sound and soundscape classification: Establishing key auditory dimensions and their relative importance

July 2006

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599 Reads

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9 Citations

This paper investigates soundscape classification by using two different forms of data gathering and two different populations. The first method involves a questionnaire completed by 75 audio professionals. The second uses a speak-aloud experiment, during which 40 end users were asked to describe their audio environment. While both approaches are different and target a different audience, they provide an indication of key dimensions for the perception of soundscapes and their relative importance. Contrasts and similarities between the results of the questionnaire and speak-alouds are highlighted. Their implications with regards to the establishment of a set of common terms in order to aid future auditory designs are also discussed.


Figure 2. Visualization of a Typical Response to a Typical Computer lab. 
Workplace Soundscape Mapping: A Trial of Macaulay and Crerar's Method

June 2006

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88 Reads

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3 Citations

This paper describes a trial of Macaulay and Crerar's method of mapping a workplace soundscape to assess its fitness as a basis for an extended soundscape mapping method. Twelve participants took part within 14 separate environments, which included academic, commercial and domestic locations. Results were visualized and subsequently collapsed to produce typical responses to typical environments, as well as specialist responses to a shared workplace.


Figure 1. Pictorial representation of data, based on an original map by Macaulay and Crerar (unpublished). 
Mapping Workplace Soundscapes: Reifying Office Auditory Environments

January 2006

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267 Reads

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1 Citation

This paper reports an empirical study to investigate how individuals perceive and classify elements of their workplace auditory environments. The participants were 18 university employees chosen for their varying degrees of room occupancy, from single occupants through to those sharing with up to 11 colleagues. Participants in single rooms were expected to have greater control over their auditory environment than those who shared, and as such, the desire and opportunity to influence the soundscape could be studied, in both positive and negative terms. A key aim was to discover what terms individuals used when describing sounds, whether they were technical, musical or object-orientated. Participants were interviewed individually, in their usual office environment, using a series of questions on a variety of topics such as the ideal working environment, and any desire to alter it, as well their experiences with auditory interfaces. After the interview, participants were asked to listen to their auditory environment for 15 minutes and describe what they could hear. Following this, they were asked to classify each sound they had mentioned using a modified version of Macaulay and Crerar's (1998) Soundscape Mapping Method. Subsequently the responses were combined onto a single diagrammatic map for ease of comparison. The interviews revealed how seldom descriptions of sounds go beyond object-orientated identifications, irrespective of the individual's background, bearing out Ballas and Howard's (1987) experiences when trying to elicit descriptions of environmental sounds. A clear indication from this series of interviews is the reliance on the source when describing sound, as Metz (1985) states, when individuals are describing sounds they are “actually thinking of the visual image of the sound's source”. We discuss codes derived from the interview transcripts and revisions made to the soundscape mapping method as a result of our findings.


Fig. 1. 
A Question of Realism

June 2004

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84 Reads

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4 Citations

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

We present the results of an exploratory study investigating the feasibility of using multimedia software to teach life skills to adults with learning difficulties. As a precursor to determining whether the clients would benefit from the software, we needed to address the issue of realism in visual displays, to discover if photorealistic images of a familiar kitchen and utensils were essential, or if the clients would be able to abstract and apply information from generic cartoon-like representations. The level of realism was varied in two sets of tasks: object recognition exercises and problem-solving scenarios. Realistic versions of each task contained photorealistic images, and the problem-solving scenarios used images and speech of a support worker known to the participants to supply feedback and prompts. Unrealistic versions used clip art images and a cartoon-style character instead of the support worker. Contrary to expectations, measurements of errors and reaction times revealed the level of realism to have a negligible effect upon user performance in both sets of tasks. What has emerged is the overwhelming effect of individual differences on the design and evaluation of learning software.


Figure 1: Visualization of sound classification reproduced from [9]
Soundfields and soundscapes: Reifying auditory communities

July 2002

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133 Reads

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17 Citations

This paper reports progress towards mapping workplace soundscapes. In order to design auditory interfaces that integrate effectively with workplace environments, we need a detailed understanding of the way in which end users inhabit these environments, and in particular, how they interact with the existing auditory environment. Our work concentrates first on mapping the physical soundfield, then overlaying this with a representation of the soundscape as experienced by its active participants. The ultimate aim of this work is to develop an interactive soundscape-mapping tool, analogous to the modeling tools available to architects. Such a tool would be of use to designers of physical, augmented and virtual environments and usable without professional musical or acoustical expertise.




Ethnography, theory and systems design: from intuition to insight

July 2000

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39 Reads

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56 Citations

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

The idea for this paper came from a debate at the 1998 ISCRAT conference in Denmark on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). A leading activist in the movement to bring CHAT into systems design, Bonnie Nardi, asked the question; would design not benefit more from training better ethnographers than from burdening them with such a complex set of theoretical concepts and debates as CHAT? This paper seeks to answer that question on the basis of our experiences applying CHAT concepts in a long-term design ethnography at a UK newspaper. It examines the history of the often controversial triadic relationship between ethnography, theory and systems design and argues that the CHAT framework provided us with the opportunity to move from ethnographic intuition to design insight, and that therefore the answer to Nardi's question is no—simply training good ethnographers is unlikely to be enough for a number of reasons (not least of which is the problem of how inexperienced fieldworkers become design ethnographers). The explicit use of theoretical frameworks, at least those such as CHAT which are particularly suited to design issues, discourages the tendency for ethnographers to see themselves as “proxy users” by encouraging greater reflexivity about the researcher's role in constructing the object of study. At a more pragmatic level, it helps the fieldworker navigate the apparently never-ending mass of “potentially interesting material” any field experience throws up.


Citations (13)


... Since color-blind users are within the subset of average users, average users can then more easily use the system. This is an example of the concept known as the inclusive design [19]. ...

Reference:

Designing Usable Bioinformatics Tools for Specialized Users
Individual Differences and Inclusive Design: Concepts, Methods, and Tools
  • Citing Chapter
  • November 2000

... Impairment patterns cut across aphasia types and revealed processing architecture. We considered as a tenet of parallel processing, that the relevant processings were independent and double-dissociated; for hierarchical processing, we implied that the impairment in a lower level processing stage impacted upon a higher integra- tion phase (Ellis, Franklin, & Crerar, 1994). Our results were compatible with parallel processing architecture at prelexical and lexical levels and suggested a hierarchical processing architecture at sentence level. ...

Cognitive neuropsychology and the remediation of disorders of spoken language
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 1994

... In order to develop a usability mobile technology, other kinds of studies considered that an effective usability evaluation method is fundamental. According to [19,20,21,22], various usability evaluation methods have been developed, like laboratory-based usability testing which gives highquality usability data with actual users. But the effectiveness of such assessment can dramatically vary, depending on who takes part in the tests, on what data are collected and on how they are analysed. ...

Integrating Usability into Systems Development
  • Citing Chapter
  • January 1998

... Istotne staje się to, jak człowiek słyszy organizację i czy nadaje temu znaczenie (Styhre, 2008, s. 214). Wyzwaniem dla badaczy i praktyków jest znalezienie wspólnego języka, którym będzie można porozumieć się w kwestii dźwiękowych aspektów pracy (Macaulay i Crerar, 1998). Wydaje się, że do dziś tematyka audiosfery jest traktowana dziedzinowo z punktu widzenia akustyki, muzykologii, kulturoznawstwa czy sztuki, natomiast brakuje osiągnięć interdyscyplinarnych i transferu wiedzy między badaczami reprezentującymi różnorodne dziedziny. ...

‘Observing’ the Workplace Soundscape: Ethnography and Auditory Interface Design

... The resultant maps will enable sound designers to better visualise the existing soundscape into which their work will blend, as well as providing a method of evaluation of their intervention. Previous studies by the authors have concentrated on the experience of the soundscape inhabitants, as well as investigating published methods, whereas this study focuses on the potential requirements of designers and evaluators of auditory environments [1,2,3]. ...

Mapping Workplace Soundscapes: Reifying Office Auditory Environments

... The resultant maps will enable sound designers to better visualise the existing soundscape into which their work will blend, as well as providing a method of evaluation of their intervention. Previous studies by the authors have concentrated on the experience of the soundscape inhabitants, as well as investigating published methods, whereas this study focuses on the potential requirements of designers and evaluators of auditory environments [1,2,3]. ...

Workplace Soundscape Mapping: A Trial of Macaulay and Crerar's Method

... AA: windshield wiper), which made up the respective sound design and were provided by the designers. The categories or constructs used in this study were user and designer generated categories validated in two earlier studies [34,35] The constructs were derived through a questionnaire completed by 75 audio professionals, and a think-aloud experiment with 40 end users who were asked to describe audio stimuli. This set of categories provided a consistent indication of key dimensions for the perception of soundscapes and their relative importance. ...

Establishing Key Dimensions for Reifying Soundfields and Soundcapes from Auditory Professionals

... In the book, Brown et al. further detail the classification scheme presented in the International Standard and suggest that it can be used to standardise reporting of acoustic environments. Another classification scheme for designing and evaluating 'augmented auditory environments' is proposed by McGregor et al. [184]. This includes establishing the dimensions that are used to describe such experiences by audio professionals and end-users. ...

Sound and soundscape classification: Establishing key auditory dimensions and their relative importance

... A detailed understanding of the way end users inhabit their environments, as well as how they interact with the existing auditory setting, is required in order to design auditory interfaces that integrate effectively in such environments [27]. An important term in this context is the notion of awareness. ...

Soundfields and soundscapes: Reifying auditory communities