Evaluation of a Multimodal Sonification and Visualisation of Depth of Market Stock Data

Day traders make minute by minute decisions from depth of market stock data read from a table. A visualisation has been designed to help traders make better decisions from extra context and history in the display. An expert review of the visualisation identified the need for more dynamic information and higher resolution in critical areas. We designed a sonification to complement the visualisation with this information in a multimodal display. We evaluated the visualisation, sonification and multimodal displays with 15 nonexperts. The subjects predicted price movements significantly better than chance, at 61.3% correct with the visualisation, 70% with the sonification and 70% with the multimodal display. The prediction of downward movements was significantly better than upward with a best of 83% for downward with the sonification, compared with 65.5% for upward with the multimodal display. There was no effect due to the order of experience with the different displays. The results suggest that the multimodal display is redundant for downward movements and complementary for upward. The subjects commented that the sonification provides recent trends while the visualisation provides context.