Papers by Areti Andreopoulou
Proceedings of the SMC Conferences, Jul 4, 2018
This book contains the Proceedings of the 15th Sound and Music Computing Conference (SMC2018) - &... more This book contains the Proceedings of the 15th Sound and Music Computing Conference (SMC2018) - "Sonic Crossings"; held on 4-7 July, 2018, Limassol, Cyprus
ACM Transactions on Computing Education, 2017
Pedagogy has emphasized that physical representations and tangible interactive objects benefit le... more Pedagogy has emphasized that physical representations and tangible interactive objects benefit learning especially for young students. There are many tangible hardware platforms for introducing computer programming to children, but there is limited comparative evaluation of them in the context of a formal classroom. In this work, we explore the benefits of learning to code for tangible computers, such as robots and wearable computers, in comparison to programming for the desktop computer. For this purpose, 36 students participated in a within-groups study that involved three types of target computer platform tangibility: (1) desktop, (2) wearable, and (3) robotic. We employed similar blocks-based visual programming environments, and we measured emotional engagement, attitudes, and computer programming performance. We found that students were more engaged by and had a higher intention of learning programming with the robotic rather than the desktop computer. Furthermore, tangible com...
international conference on auditory display, Jul 1, 2015
In the absence of a well suited measure for quantifying binaural data variations, this study pres... more In the absence of a well suited measure for quantifying binaural data variations, this study presents the use of a global perceptual distance metric which can describe both HRTF as well as listener similarities. The metric is derived based on subjective evaluations of binaural renderings of a sound moving along predefined trajectories in the horizontal and median planes. Its characteristics and advantages in describing data distributions based on perceptually relevant attributes are discussed. In addition, the use of 24 HRTFs from two different databases of origin allows for an evaluation of the perceptual impact of some database-dependent characteristics on spatialization. The effectiveness of the experimental design as well as the correlation between the HRTF evaluations of the two plane trajectories are also discussed. This work was funded in part by the French FUI project BiLi ("Binaural Listening", www.bili-project.org, FUI-AAP14)
This work looks at improvisations produced by the OMax, ImproteK, and Djazz ML generators, throug... more This work looks at improvisations produced by the OMax, ImproteK, and Djazz ML generators, through the lens of the elements of music and suggests a musically-oriented evaluation methodology. This idiomatic music analysis is presented from a jazz performer’s point of view, reflecting upon cognitive foundations of emotion and meaning. The analysis, based mainly on the evaluation of already published material and on the authors’ own experiments, shows musical drawbacks in terms of tension and release of the resulting melodic lines, voice leading of chords, rhythm, groove, dynamic control, and structure.
This work looks at improvisations produced by the OMax, ImproteK, and Djazz ML generators, throug... more This work looks at improvisations produced by the OMax, ImproteK, and Djazz ML generators, through the lens of the elements of music and suggests a musically-oriented evaluation methodology. This idiomatic music analysis is presented from a jazz performer's point of view, reflecting upon cognitive foundations of emotion and meaning. The analysis, based mainly on the evaluation of already published material and on the authors' own experiments, shows musical drawbacks in terms of tension and release of the resulting melodic lines, voice leading of chords, rhythm, groove, dynamic control, and structure.
NIME 2021
Polyfōnía is a real-time portable vocal processing system which users can control by means of the... more Polyfōnía is a real-time portable vocal processing system which users can control by means of their fingers, without the use of gloves or wiring. Its vocal processors include a live looping system and a harmonizer. Motion detection is performed by a motion sensor. Through specific gestures, the user can develop and control real-time voice harmonies and live looping. The system's input is the microphone's audio signal and its output is the processed audio signal. The traditional foot-controlled vocal processors are not oriented towards the real-time vocal performer's needs, as their handling interferes with the posture and expressiveness of the performer's body, acting more as a communication barrier and a source of distraction. The goal of Polyfōnía is to offer, through new technologies and interactive performance, a more natural handling of vocal processors, without added components, highlighting them as a valuable tool for vocal artists in real-time conditions. It is intended to be used in conjunction with vocalists' standard performing techniques and aesthetics, as a means for expanding the possibilities of human voice and musical creation.
Even though there is a persistent gender gap, the impact of women in audio continues to grow. The... more Even though there is a persistent gender gap, the impact of women in audio continues to grow. The achievements of pioneering women in audio go back to the mid-twentieth century. Their accomplishments in the entertainment and academic sectors have helped pave the way for a record number of women in the next generation of women in audio. This paper presents recent contributions as well as discusses the representation of women in audio, the gender gap and challenges women face in this field. Various options, policies and initiatives are also proposed with the goal towards gender parity. The authors hope to provide a valuable contribution to the research on women in audio, and in particular women's representation in audio engineering, production and electronic music.
Biomedical Signal Processing and Control, 2021
The quality level in Operatic Singing has been repeatedly reported as declining by a number of ac... more The quality level in Operatic Singing has been repeatedly reported as declining by a number of academic scholars, music critics, and distinguished opera professionals and teachers, during the last few decades. This narrative review attempts to combine scientific research results from Physiology, Acoustics, Psychoacoustics, Sociology, and Cognitive Sciences, in order to find possible causes for such a change and suggest applicable solutions. The opera singing profession has been widely regarded as an extremely demanding specialty, requiring high levels of cognitive awareness and muscular motor control. The stagnant empiric vocal pedagogy system in conjunction with other aspects of the modern way of life are possible factors impeding the achievement of such an elite level. Today, we have the technological resources and scientific data available, but they have not necessarily been widely used toward the development of tools for the aspiring operatic singers’ training. Moreover, any such tools are usually concerned specifically with the acoustic analysis and contemporary vocal performance, but rarely factor in the kinesthetic singing properties. In this review, we suggest that Opera singers would benefit from educational strategies and specialized multi-sensory biofeedback tools that will a) promote their somatosensory control and b) heighten their awareness of their breathing, phonatory, and articulatory biomechanical functions and abilities.
ABSTRACT This study offers a detailed description of the clustering tendencies of a large, standa... more ABSTRACT This study offers a detailed description of the clustering tendencies of a large, standardized HRTF repository, and compares the quality of the results to those of a CIPIC database subset. The statistical analysis was implemented by applying k-means clustering on the log magnitude of HRTFs on the horizontal plane, for a varying number of clusters. A thorough report on the grouping behavior of the filters as the number of clusters increases revealed a superiority of the HRTF repository in describing common behaviors across equivalent azimuth positions, over the CIPIC subset, for the majority of the HRTF datasets.
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms, 2005
In the absence of a well suited measure for quantifying binaural data variations, this study pres... more In the absence of a well suited measure for quantifying binaural data variations, this study presents the use of a global perceptual distance metric which can describe both HRTF as well as listener similarities. The metric is derived based on subjective evaluations of binaural renderings of a sound moving along predefined trajectories in the horizontal and median planes. Its characteristics and advantages in describing data distributions based on perceptually relevant attributes are discussed. In addition, the use of 24 HRTFs from two different databases of origin allows for an evaluation of the perceptual impact of some database-dependent characteristics on spatialization. The effectiveness of the experimental design as well as the correlation between the HRTF evaluations of the two plane trajectories are also discussed.
This paper illustrates the significance of the concept of information as a tool to expound sonifi... more This paper illustrates the significance of the concept of information as a tool to expound sonification design. Previous works approached the concept of information systematically. However, its structural characteristics during the process of sonification have not been thoroughly discussed. In order to address the above, this paper presents a framework based on the definition of information from the fields of physics, communication engineering, cybernetics, and systems theory. According to this framework, the representation of a phenomenon into organized sound becomes possible by the propagation of organization within the components of the sonification communication model. Moreover, a distinction between the terms data and information is proposed and related to well-established sonification techniques (Audification, PMSon, MBS). The structural characteristics of the phenomenon (described in terms of entropy) are linked with sonification functions leading to new perspectives of sonif...
The design of immersive soundscape experiences, both for artistic and informative purposes, is an... more The design of immersive soundscape experiences, both for artistic and informative purposes, is an established field in Auditory Display. This paper describes the process of designing historically informed soundscapes to be incorporated in modern travel-guide applications. The work stems from the research project TRACCE (TRavelogue with Augmented Cultural & Contemporary Experience), which focuses on the design and development of a platform for augmented cultural routes. Using this platform, hikers can follow the journey of 18 and 19 century travelers, having access to the original travelogues, tracked routes, and a wide variety of modern information. User experience is augmented by means of visual and auditory reconstructions of the original surrounding environments in several identified points of interest in each path. Apart from the creative process and technical details, the paper discusses the design challenges, which mainly stem from a) the limited data available which would all...
Journal of The Audio Engineering Society, 2018
In the absence of a well suited measure for quantifying binaural data variations, this study pres... more In the absence of a well suited measure for quantifying binaural data variations, this study presents the use of a global perceptual distance metric which can describe both HRTF as well as listener similarities. The metric is derived based on subjective evaluations of binaural renderings of a sound moving along predefined trajectories in the horizontal and median planes. Its characteristics and advantages in describing data distributions based on perceptually relevant attributes are discussed. In addition, the use of 24 HRTFs from two different databases of origin allows for an evaluation of the perceptual impact of some database-dependent characteristics on spatialization. The effectiveness of the experimental design as well as the correlation between the HRTF evaluations of the two plane trajectories are also discussed.
This paper describes a new HRTF collection, measured at the Music and Audio Research Laboratory (... more This paper describes a new HRTF collection, measured at the Music and Audio Research Laboratory (MARL), at NYU. This collection of 40 datasets, consists of repeated HRTF measurements on 4 subjects (10 HRTF sets per subject). Analysis of the data offers an understanding of the expected degree of variation in HRTF sets, which, when supported by subjective evaluation, can provide deeper insight for perceptually detected differences between binaural filters. Such knowledge has applications in various research fields and related signal processing tasks, such as: binaural auditory displays, HRTF modeling, and HRTF interpolation.
This study investigates the use of short-term memory for pitch recognition in a Western (12-tone)... more This study investigates the use of short-term memory for pitch recognition in a Western (12-tone) vs. a 10-tone equal temperament context. 10 subjects with at least one year of formal music and theory training participated in an experiment that consisted of two identical music listening tests (one per tuning system) in which they were trained to recall a reference tone and count the number of times it recurred in various short monophonic melodies. In the parts of the experiment where subjects used their short-term memory to execute one-to-one comparisons between the given reference tone and the melody tones, the results were equivalent for both tuning modes. On the other hand, when subjects tried to recall the reference tone directly from long-term memory, the results were noticeably better for the Western tuning context.
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Papers by Areti Andreopoulou