Applying information theory to investigate music performance with continuous electronic sensors

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America Vol. 141; no. 5; pp. 3875 - 3876
• Main Authors: Berdahl, Edgar J., Blandino, Michael, Shanahan, Daniel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.05.2017
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.4988670

A wide variety of electronic sensors can be used for designing new digital musical instruments and other human-computer interfaces. However, presently human abilities for continuously controlling such sensors are not well quantified. The field of information theory suggests that a human together with a user interface can be modeled as a communication channel. Previously, Fitts' Law used a discrete communications channel to model information conveyed by a human pointing at discrete targets. In contrast, the present work employs a continuous communications channel to model a human continuously controlling an analog-valued sensor. The Shannon-Hartley theorem implies that the channel capacity (e.g., HCI throughput) can be estimated by asking human subjects to perform gestures that match idealized, bandlimited Gaussian “target gestures” across a range of bandwidths. Then, the signal-to-noise ratio of the recorded gestures determines the channel capacity (e.g., HCI throughput). This approach is tested on human users alternately operating simple analog sensors. Suggestions are made for creating knowledge about user interfaces that could potentially transmit an enhanced amount of information to a computer.