Analyzing Aural and Sound Data
By Janet Salmons, PhD Research Community Manager for Sage Methodspace
The baby crying next door. Chaotic street life that permeates the apartment. Music. The tone of voices in the interview recording. Whether intentional or not, sometimes important data can be heard. How do we analyze and interpret aural data? These open-access articles offer some examples.
Albitar, M., & Bigazzi, A. (2023). Instrumentation to Measure On-Road Cyclist Noise Exposure: Considerations for Study Design with Smartphones and Sound Level Meters. Transportation Research Record, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/03611981231158363
Abstract. Cyclist noise exposure has implications for health, comfort, and safety. Methods used for in situ measurement of on-road noise levels for cyclists vary, and the effects of key study design factors have not been investigated. To enable reliable research into cyclist noise exposure, this study aims to determine the accuracy of smartphone noise measurements in comparison with a sound level meter (SLM) reference instrument, and how noise levels are affected by travel speed, air speed, sensor placement, and use of a windscreen. Field data were collected with paired instruments in a typical urban cycling scenario, and comparisons made varying one design factor at a time (smartphone versus SLM, with versus without windscreen, handlebar versus shoulder placement, etc.). Results show that smartphones can generate reliable measurements (compared with SLM) of high-resolution (1-s) cyclist exposure for C-weighted noise, but not A-weighted noise. Sensor placement and windscreen have small effects on noise readings, but air speed and travel speed greatly affect measured noise levels. Future studies measuring on-road noise must consider the effects of wind- and bicycle-generated noise to ensure internal validity. Studies should also consider both study objectives and instrumentation when selecting a noise measure (frequency weighting). Research is needed into bicycle noise generation and perception of traffic noise by cyclists to enhance the reliability of future studies.
Chester, D. (2022). Using creative response to sonically translate vernacular photography: The Lest We Forget project in the United Arab Emirates. Methodological Innovations, 15(3), 308–320. https://doi.org/10.1177/20597991221129794
Abstract. This paper explores the benefits and possibilities of using recorded sound as a tool for expressing the stories behind photographs for archival purposes through an ethnographic study of Lest We Forget (LWF), a grassroots initiative that documents and explores cultural memory pertaining to the United Arab Emirates. The goals of this paper are to further the dialogue about the value of transdisciplinary research toward the end of greater preservation and sustainability of cultural heritage; and to make an argument about the value of community members creatively responding to photographs, and archival materials from their own culture, using sound. What I have found is that creative response is a theory of knowledge that allows a community to retain ownership of their heritage and their imagination of the past, present, and future, and an emerging methodological process that, when used, ensures a living archive.
Fasoli, F., & Maass, A. (2020). The Social Costs of Sounding Gay: Voice-Based Impressions of Adoption Applicants. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 39(1), 112–131. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X19883907
Abstract. In three studies (total N = 239) we examined the unexplored question of whether voice conveying sexual orientation elicits stigma and discrimination in the context of adoption. Studies 1 and 2 were conducted in Italy where same-sex adoption is illegal and controversial. Study 3 was conducted in the United Kingdom where same-sex adoption is legal and generally more accepted. The three studies show that listeners draw strong inferences from voice when judging hypothetical adoption seekers. Both Italian and British listeners judged gay-sounding speakers as warmer and as having better parenting skills, yet Italian participants consistently preferred straight over gay-sounding applicants, whereas British participants showed an opposite tendency, presumably reflecting the different normative context in the two countries. We conclude that vocal cues may have culturally distinct effects on judgment and decision making and that people with gay-sounding voices may face discrimination in adoption procedures in countries with antigay norms.
Jensen, V. S. (2015). Sight, Sound, Touch: A Methodological Exploration of Ontological Effects in an Ethnographic Study. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 14(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406915618098
Abstract. The purpose of this article is to explore an alternative to traditional meaning-making interpretive analyses in ethnographic work. Underlying the article is my own ethnographic work with adults diagnosed with autism. The autism theme forms an example of the methodological exploration at work. I am inspired by the ontological turn in anthropology and carnal philosophy, and the methodological exploration is driven by the question about what things and practices in the informants’ lives can be seen as having ontological effects rather than epistemic value. The methodological pivot is three interview situations, extended into virtual meetings, all given extensive space in the article and where autism unfolds as various practices based on sense impressions. These practices are not seen as representations of an underlying static ontology but as performances that make worlds emerge through the relations they are part of.
Jewitt, C., van der Vlugt, M., & Hübner, F. (2021). Sensoria: An exploratory interdisciplinary framework for researching multimodal & sensory experiences. Methodological Innovations, 14(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20597991211051446
Abstract. This paper describes the development and salience of an original and innovative interdisciplinary approach, Sensoria, that combines methods and techniques from social science and performance to address the methodological challenges of researching sensory/multimodal experiences. It sets out the core components and methodological principles that underpin the approach and uses an illustrative example to show how it can facilitate research on hard to access sensorial experiences, to access, understand and analyse people’s experiences and perspectives of touch, a highly tacit sensory mode. The paper discusses the methodological contribution and challenges of this approach to sensory research for social science and artistic practice and ‘more-than-representational’ research more generally. It concludes by making a case for more critical research spaces at the intersection of these disciplines to foster multi-dimensional research dialogues and to advance the exploration and understanding of the relationship between the sensory, social and the digital.
Merlino, S., Mondada, L., & Söderström, O. (2023). Walking through the city soundscape: an audio-visual analysis of sensory experience for people with psychosis. Visual Communication, 22(1), 71–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/14703572211052638
Abstract. This article discusses how an aspect of urban environments – sound and noise – is experienced by people walking in the city; it particularly focuses on atypical populations such as people diagnosed with psychosis, who are reported to be particularly sensitive to noisy environments. Through an analysis of video-recordings of naturalistic activities in an urban context and of video-elicitations based on these recordings, the study details the way participants orient to sound and noise in naturalistic settings, and how sound and noise are reported and reexperienced during interviews. By bringing together urban context, psychosis and social interaction, this study shows that, thanks to video recordings and conversation analysis, it is possible to analyse in detail the multimodal organization of action (talk, gesture, gaze, walking bodies) and of the sensory experience(s) of aural factors, as well as the way this organization is affected by the ecology of the situation.
Royston, R. A. (2021). Podcasts and new orality in the African mediascape. New Media & Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211021032
Abstract. While podcasts as a storytelling media have exploded in popularity in the West since 2014, the uptake and consumption of this sonic new media was relatively slow in Africa until recently. This article explores amateur and start-up entrepreneurship podcasts that came to dominate the African mediascape during the medium’s coming of age moment between 2014 and 2018. I extend Walter Ong’s observation that broadcast and electronic media recreate the experience of oral performance, to show how the oral and aural dimensions of podcasting represent a set of approaches that can be described as new orality. This article also draws connections and distinctions between what I term the “dialogic schema” of African tech podcasts and “traditional” forms of narrative storytelling in African public cultures, as well as the emerging forms of mobile digital practices that, like podcasting, challenge easy distinctions between written and oral and literacy.
Shannon, D. B., & Truman, S. E. (2020). Problematizing Sound Methods Through Music Research-Creation: Oblique Curiosities. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406920903224
Abstract. In this article, we take up feminist new materialist thought in relation to our music research-creation practice to problematize the white, en/abled, cis-masculine, and Euro-Western methodological orientation often inherited with sound methods. We think with our music research-creation practice to activate a feminist new materialist politics of approach, unsettling sound studies’ inheritances that seek to separate, essentialize, naturalize/neutralize, capture, decontextualize, and re-present. We unsettle these inheritances with six propositions: imbricate, stratify, provoke, inject, contextualize, and more-than-represent. These propositions, and this article’s uptake of research-creation, hold implications for scholars interested in critically enacting sound studies research as well as qualitative and post qualitative research in general.
More Methodspace Posts about Creative and Arts-Based Methods
The baby crying next door. Chaotic street life that permeates the apartment. Music. The tone of voices in the interview recording. Whether intentional or not, sometimes important data can be heard. How do we analyze and interpret aural data? These open-access articles offer some examples.