1/f Noise and Auditory Aesthetics: Sonification of a Driven Bead Pile

“1/f noise” describes the behavior of many naturally occurring complex dynamical systems over time. Perhaps more surprising than its ubiquity in nature is its prevalence in speech and especially music. Current research suggests that aspects of the human emotional response to music can be predicted using analysis based upon 1/f distributions. Musical compositions in which the pitch and duration of notes over time correspond to 1/f distributions have been found to be more pleasant than non-1/f distributions. The current research compares the sonification of a driven bead pile to an experimentally contrived deviation. Preliminary results suggest that the findings of pitch and duration may be extended to timbre and spatialization. The benefits of continued research into the application 1/f distributions in sonification for the auditory display community are discussed.