The effect of audio description on film comprehension of individuals with visual impairment: A case study in Turkey

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the extent to which audio description contributes to the visually impaired individuals’ comprehension of a film by examining the visually impaired and sighted participants’ comprehension of two versions of the same film, one with and the other without supplementary audio description. The results of the study showed that the visually impaired participants were able to comprehend and narrate the events to the same extent as the sighted participants did when the film was supplemented with audio description. The qualitative analysis validated this finding and demonstrated that the visually impaired participants were able to comprehend the film to a great extent with the assistance of audio description. These findings emphasized the role of audio description assistance and its effects as an important resource in converting visual information to vocal information, which greatly aids the visually impaired individuals’ film comprehension. Also, the use of “Causal Network Model” showed that understanding the plot better could enable the audio description creators to provide better assistance for the visually impaired if they applied this model.