Supplementary Materials for "Interactive Mode Explorer Sonification enhances Exploratory Cluster Analysis"

This paper introduces Mode Explorer, a novel interactive auditory data exploration method to investigate features of high-dimensional data distributions: scratching-interactions on a 2D scatter plot of high-dimensional data with a pencil induces real-time dynamical processes according to a particle sonification model, excited in data space at the nearest mode in the probability density function (pdf) obtained by Kernel Density Estimation. Specifically, the sign-inverted pdf is used as potential energy function in which test particles perform oscillations at low friction, yielding trajectories, and via their instantaneous kinetic energy signals that are directly played back as sound. This Model-based sonification approach enables an interactive search for different modes, to investigate their details, e.g., comparing cluster mass. We present results of a user study, which allows us to conclude that the Mode Explorer enhances users' ability to discriminate clusters and to compare their relative a-priori probabilities. <br> **V1.mov**: Demonstration of sniffing the particles as they traveled through the data space and converged to the mode with a low friction. **V2.mov**: Demonstration video of the Mode Explorer using a Wacom Tablet and modified stylus. **trajectory.txt**: Cython code of the potential function. Note: This code only demonstrates the algorithm, to use it Cython library needs to be installed. We will release a full demonstration program for public use for the camera ready version.

本文介绍了Mode Explorer——一种新颖的交互式听觉数据探索方法，用于研究高维数据分布的特征：在高维数据的二维散点图上，使用铅笔进行刮擦交互，会根据粒子可听化模型（particle sonification model）触发实时动态过程；该过程在数据空间中被激发，激发点为通过核密度估计（Kernel Density Estimation）得到的概率密度函数（pdf）的最近模态。具体而言，符号反转的pdf被用作势能函数（potential energy function），测试粒子在低摩擦条件下于其中进行振荡，产生轨迹，并通过其瞬时动能信号直接回放为声音。这种基于模型的可听化（sonification）方法支持对不同模态的交互式搜索，以探究其细节（例如比较簇质量）。我们呈现了一项用户研究的结果，该结果表明Mode Explorer提升了用户区分簇和比较其相对先验概率的能力。<br>**V1.mov**：演示粒子在数据空间中移动并在低摩擦下收敛到模态的过程。**V2.mov**：使用Wacom数位板和改装触控笔的Mode Explorer演示视频。**trajectory.txt**：势能函数的Cython代码。注意：此代码仅演示算法，使用时需安装Cython库。我们将在最终版本中发布完整的演示程序供公众使用。