Chronoroom Clock: Peripheral Time Awareness Through Sound Localization

Abstract

Our auditory perception skills enable us to selectively place one auditory channel in the center of our attention while monitoring others in the periphery. Furthermore, we are able to accurately localize sound sources. In this paper, we present Chronoroom Clock, an auditory display that unobtrusively provides information about the current time based on the direction the audio is coming from, enabling people to monitor it in the periphery of their attention. Evaluation of a prototype version of this design indicates that the used audio may indeed shift to the periphery of the user’s attention.