Could integrated subtitles benefit young viewers? Children’s reception of standard and integrated subtitles: a mixed methods approach using eye tracking

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates children’s reception of AV content with standard and integrated interlingual subtitles. To this end, an experimental study was conducted with 17 children aged 8–9 years, to assess their reception of clips of an animated film in Spanish with standard and integrated subtitles in English. A mixed methods approach was adopted with the aim of obtaining a robust, comprehensive understanding of the children’s reception of the subtitled AV content, using eye tracking, scene recognition tests, content comprehension tests, questionnaires, and interviews. It was established that the children spent a significantly larger proportion of their viewing time looking at the images and also fixated more times on the images when the subtitles were in the integrated position. However, the hypothesis that participants would exert lower levels of cognitive effort when watching the AV clips with integrated subtitles was only partially confirmed. The integrated subtitles did not have detrimental effects on their viewing patterns, scene recognition performance, or comprehension of the clips. The majority approved highly of both subtitle positions and perceived both as easy to read and understand. These findings show that further research in this area is warranted.

KEYWORDS:

• Integrated subtitles
• eye tracking
• cognitive processing
• children

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A subtitle placement strategy which aims for the subtitles to fit in with viewers’ natural gaze patterns, to reduce the length of the gaze path between the subtitles and the characters or salient elements of the image, and to maintain viewers’ engagement with the characters and action.

2 Also, see Fresno (2018) and Romero-Fresco (2018) for useful reviews of research in this area.

3 Homogeneous sampling is a non-probability, purposive sampling method which involves selecting ‘settings, groups, and/or individuals based on similar or specific characteristics’ (Onwuegbuzie & Collins, 2007, p. 285).

4 This list is informed by Fox’s ‘modular guidelines’ for individually placed subtitles (Fox, 2018).

5 Cohen’s r has been used to calculate effect size.

6 243 ms for one line subtitles and 252 ms for two line subtitles (D'Ydewalle & De Bruycker, 2007, p. 199).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sharon Black

Sharon Black is Lecturer in Interpreting (with Spanish) at the University of East Anglia. Her principal research interests are in the area of audiovisual translation (AVT), in particular arts and media accessibility, the reception and cognitive processing of translated audiovisual content and AVT for children and young people. Sharon has collaborated as Co-Investigator on EU projects financially supported by the Erasmus+ programme, in the areas of arts and digital media accessibility. Her PhD research (completed in 2017 at Queen's University Belfast) investigated children's reception of subtitled audiovisual content. Sharon is Treasurer of the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST) and is a member of the European Society for Translation Studies (EST) and the International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS).