Testing audio narration: the emotional impact of language in audio description

Abstract

Around the world, guidelines have been created to establish a clear procedure on how to create audio description. These put emphasis on the objectivity principle. However, in recent years this principle has been widely criticized, and a more narrative approach has been encouraged, although the reception of these opposing styles has not been compared experimentally. At the same time, while emotions play a central role in the filmic experience, the emotional reception of audio description in films has been tested on very few occasions. This paper analyses the differences in the emotional response to two audio description versions: a more objective version vs. a subjective version including metaphors, inferences, and subjective evaluation. We worked with 15 film scenes eliciting disgust, fear, and sadness to analyse how sighted and unsighted participants react at an emotional level. Emotions were measured by means of a Likert questionnaire and measurements of the heart rate. The results point to statistically significant differences between the versions in the case of fear and especially sadness, but not disgust.