ISCA Archive PQS 2006
ISCA Archive PQS 2006

Sound perception and sound design

Ute Jekosch

Sound design constructs audibility of the world. Sounds carry information about the world. When listening to sounds communication takes place. This is a well-known fact for speech sounds, but it is also true of other types of sounds such as music or product sounds. In principle, each acoustic event can be perceived as a sign carrier by which information about the world is communicated. In its ultimate sense, sound designers are engineers of communication. To be successful they have to take design decisions on the basis of how listeners perceive sounds and of what sort of communication takes place during the perceptual event. The career of sound design requires a special view of acoustic / auditory communication. Amongst others, this is a field of semiotics. This paper looks at sound design from the perspective of semiotics.