Event Boundary Perception in Audio Described Films by People Without Sight

Abstract

Audio description (AD) serves a critical role in making film narratives accessible to visually impaired audiences, aiming to enhance their viewing experience and comprehension. One method to assess the comprehension of film narratives, is through an event segmentation task, wherein participants delineate the narrative unfolding into distinct meaningful events. In the present study, both sighted and visually impaired participants engaged in such tasks. Sighted participants watched a Swedish film, while visually impaired participants experienced the same film with two AD versions—one explicitly expressing key event boundaries and another containing more implicitly conveyed ones. Our findings indicate that visually impaired participants perceived event boundaries similarly to sighted participants, suggesting that AD effectively conveys the event structure. However, in the AD version with implicit expressions, event boundaries were less likely to be recognized. These results shed light on event segmentation dynamics in films, emphasizing the importance of how event boundaries are presented in AD. This has significant implications for improving the cinematic experience for visually impaired viewers, emphasizing the need for clear, explicit information about event boundaries within AD.