Marketbuzz: Sonification of real-time financial dataa

Abstract

A system for the sonification of real-time financial data, currently in use by financial traders in five pilot projects, is described. Anecdotal feedback from the pilot projects suggests that the auditory display is more effective and consistent for monitoring the movement of volatile market indices. The same system has also been tested in two experiments carried out at the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College. In the first experiment, subjects performed ``change of direction'' monitoring tasks of varying difficulty with and without auditory display. The results indicated a significant increase in accuracy when the auditory display was used. In the second experiment, subjects performed the same monitoring task with and without auditory display but were given a second, ``number-matching'' task which forced them to direct their visual attention away from the ``change of direction'' task from time to time. The auditory display increased accuracy more dramatically than in the first experiment, since the subjects were able to rely on the sonification to perform the ``change of direction'' monitoring task when they were distracted with the ``number-matching'' task.