Title
"To feel or not to feel" . When getting sexually aroused without seeing is the question. Facial expressions, cortisol, HR and engagement
Conference name
Media for All 10 Conference
City
Country
Belgium
Modalities
Date
06/07/2023-07/07/2023
Abstract
Audio description remains the cornerstone of accessibility for visually impaired audiences to all sorts of audiovisual content, including porn. Existing work points to the efficacy of audio description to guarantee immersion and emotional engagement, but evidence on its role in sexual arousal and engagement in porn is still scant. The present study takes on this challenge by comparing sighted and visually impaired participantsʼ experiences with porn in terms of the emotional response assessed in facial expressions, physiological measures of arousal—i.e., cortisol and heart rate—, self-reported measures of affect (PANAS, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule; Watson et al., 1988).), anxiety (the STAI, Spielberger et al., 1970), sexual reactivity (the SIS/SES, Moyano & Sierra, 2014; and the RSA, Mosher et al., 2011), and narrative engagement (The Transport Narrative Questionnaire, Green and Brock 2013).
69 Spanish participants were allocated into three different groups: 25 sighted participants who watched and heard the porn scenes in their audio-visual version (AV); 22 sighted participants who listened to the audio described version without images (AD); and 22 visually impaired participants who also listened to the audio described version without images (ONCE). Overall, results from the study point to the efficacy of audio description in providing sighted and visually impaired audiences with a similar experience to that offered by original AV porn scenes. This study is exploratory but provides valid, initial groundwork for further research on the impact of audio description on porn reception.
69 Spanish participants were allocated into three different groups: 25 sighted participants who watched and heard the porn scenes in their audio-visual version (AV); 22 sighted participants who listened to the audio described version without images (AD); and 22 visually impaired participants who also listened to the audio described version without images (ONCE). Overall, results from the study point to the efficacy of audio description in providing sighted and visually impaired audiences with a similar experience to that offered by original AV porn scenes. This study is exploratory but provides valid, initial groundwork for further research on the impact of audio description on porn reception.