  Based on a case study on 3D printing, we have been experimenting on the
sonification of multidimensional data for peripheral process monitoring. In a
previous paper, we tested the effectiveness of a soundscape which combined
intentionally incongruous natural and musical sounds. This was based on the
hypothesis that auditory stimuli could better stand out from one another if
they were less ecologically coherent, thus allowing for better reaction rates
to various notifications. In this paper, we follow up on that hypothesis by
testing two new acoustic ecologies, each exclusively consisting of either
musical or natural sounds. We then run those ecologies through the same
dual-task evaluation process as the previous one in order to compare them. The
results seem to favor our hypothesis, as the new ecologies were not detected as
accurately as the original. Though, the set of natural sounds seemed to be
considered less intrusive by testers, and to allow for a better performance at
an external primary task. We hope to see this work become part of a much larger
corpus of studies, which may eventually provide a more definite answer on the
effect of ecological coherence in peripheral soundscape design.
