Learning Center

Research on Closed Captioning

At the PAC3 at JALT Conference (2001), Gordon Liversidge discusses research showing that the presence of captioning aids comprehension and/or acquisition. However, most studies do not consider the link between viewing and activities. The first section explains the regional and disciplinary fragmentation of closed captioning research. The second section introduces comprehensive studies each of which contain a number of experiments. The third section presents smaller experiments that examine specific questions.

Adding Audio Description to Television Science Programs: What is the Impact on Visually Impaired Viewers?

Science programs on television present much of their information only visually. For people who are visually impaired this reliance on visual cues limits access to the learning and enjoyment such programs offer. Emilie Schmeidler discusses the intent to provide visually impaired people with more access to the programs' content and to make viewing more satisfying by ensuring that people with disabilities have the same access to information and opportunities that people without disabilities do.

Effect of Caption Rate on the Comprehension of Educational Television Programmes by Deaf School Students

Published in Deafness and Education International (2009), several experts investigate how the rate of caption delivery affects the comprehension of educational programmes by better- and poorer-reading deaf school children. Participants watched three short documentaries, with captions presented at 90, 120, or 180 words per minute (wpm). Across both reading levels, comprehension was uniformly higher at 90 and 120 wpm than at 180 wpm. These results suggest that the rate of captions in children's television programmes can safely use 120 wpm as a slowest speed.

Educational Media Producer and Accessibility Survey Results

In June 2008 a survey was conducted of the top 35 educational media producers/distributors in the United States. Each company was asked about its products and whether they were accessible, either via captioning or description (or if both were available), whether they were familiar with either accessibility option, and how many of their customers requested either or both on the media items they intended to purchase.

The Effects of Captions on Deaf Students' Content Comprehension, Cognitive Load, and Motivation in Online Learning

In 2011, the authors, Joong-O Yoon and Minjeong Kim, examined the effects of captions on deaf students' content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation in online learning. The participants in the study were 62 deaf adult students who had limited reading comprehension skills and used sign language as a first language. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control group or the experimental group. The independent variable was the presence of captions, and the dependent variables were content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation. The study applied a posttest-only control group design. The results of the experiment indicated a significant difference (t = -2.16, p < .05) in content comprehension but no statistically significant difference in cognitive load and motivation between the two groups. These results led to suggestions for improvements in learning materials for deaf individuals. (American Annals of the Deaf, v.156, no. 3, Summer 2011).

The Benefit to the Deaf of Real Time Captions in a Mainstream Classroom Environment

A dissertation submitted by Aaron Steinfeld, University of Michigan, 1999. Guidelines for the developers of captioning devices were made: (1) Real-time captions (RTC) are beneficial for both deaf and hearing students; (2) Location of a RTC display (desk or podium) has no impact on recall performance; (3) RTC devices should display at least four lines of text. However, there is only theoretical support for displays of more than four lines of text; (4) Higher amounts of sentence lag seem to improve performance (up to two lines or 6 seconds). It is possible that larger levels of lag may result in decreased performance; (5) A higher rate of presentation (200 vs. 160 wpm) appears to have a negative impact on performance for deaf subjects when lag is present, and; (6) Users are reasonably good at determining their ideal device parameters given the opportunity to experience their choices. However, deaf users may perform better with lag even though their preference for it is low.

Children, Media, and Race: Media Use Among White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian American Children

This report documents differences in the role of media in the lives of White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian children in the United States: which types of media they use, how much time they spend in various media activities, which media platforms and devices they own, and what the media environment is like in their households. From the Center on Media and Human Development, Northwestern University (2011). Report by Victoria Rideout, MA; Alexis Lauricella, PhD; and Ellen Wartella, PhD.

Reading Out of the "Idiot Box": Same Language Subtitling on Television in India

Descriptive Children's Television: Bridging the Gap for Blind Kids While Benefiting All Kids

While some research has been conducted about the benefits of description and blind adults, no empirical data have been collected relating to benefits of description for children. In this paper by Melanie Peskoe, literature has been reviewed to discuss (1) the emerging trend toward educational programming for preschool-aged children, (2) the various theories about how children learn, and (3) the implications of description for both blind and sighted children. This paper serves as a foundation for future, needed research on this topic and calls for attention to be paid to both the social impact of description as well as the methods used for deciding when, what, and how to describe.

The Influence of English Language and Spanish Language Captions on Foreign Language Listening/Reading Comprehension

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using Spanish captions, English captions, or no captions with a Spanish language soundtrack on intermediate university-level Spanish as a Foreign Language students' listening/reading comprehension. These findings indicate that intermediate-level foreign language students' listening comprehension/reading comprehension can be substantially enhanced via the use of captions in English or Spanish

Digital Beginnings: Young Children's Use of Popular Culture, Media and New Technologies

This report presents the findings of a study that took place from September 2004 to July 2005. The study explored young children's (aged from birth to six) use of popular culture, media, and new technologies in the home through a survey of 1,852 parents and caretakers of children.

Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet 2008

Larry Goldberg, the Director of Media Access for WGBH in Boston, delivers a testimony to Congressional members of the ''Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2007'' subcommittee regarding the efforts undertaken by WGBH and NCAM to ensure accessibility in the digital age. Topics covered include the following: a brief history of captioning and audio description, some of the accessibility challenges faced by producers in moving their content to the Internet, the development and goals of the Internet Captioning Forum, and the need for standardization of captioning formats for the Web.

The Language System of Audio Description: An Investigation as a Discursive Process

Philip J. Piety's study investigates the language used in a selection of films containing audio description and develops a set of definitions that allow productions containing it to be more fully defined, measured, and compared. It also highlights some challenging questions related to audio description as a discursive practice and provides a basis for future study of this unique use of language. From the Journal of Visual Impairments and Blindness (JVIB).

Audio Description Text for Indexing Films

Access to audiovisual materials should be as open and free as access to print-based materials. However, we have not yet achieved such a reality. Methods useful for organizing print-based materials do not necessarily work well when applied to audiovisual and multimedia materials. In this project, Canadian researchers James Turner and Suzanne Mathieu studied using audio description text and written descriptions to generate keywords for indexing moving images. In the second part of the study, they looked at the possibility of automatically translating keywords from audio description text into other languages to use them as indexing, with encouraging results.

Feasibility Study Relating To The Establishment Of A Descriptive Loan Service