MIME-Version: 1.0 Server: CERN/3.0 Date: Monday, 25-Nov-96 00:26:25 GMT Content-Type: text/html Content-Length: 1588 Last-Modified: Wednesday, 10-Aug-94 22:10:50 GMT
Visual communication is characterized by the eye's ability to actively access parts of a two-dimensional display. The reader is active, while the display is passive. This active-passive role is reversed by the temporal nature of oral communication: information flows actively past a passive listener. This prohibits multiple views ---it is impossible to first obtain a high-level view and then ``look'' at details. These shortcomings become severe when presenting complex mathematics orally.
Audio formatting, which renders information structure in a manner attuned to an auditory display, overcomes these problems. AsTeR is interactive, and the ability to browse information structure and obtain multiple views enables active listening.
--Raman