Can you feel what I'm saying? The impact of verbal information on emotion elicitation and presence in people with a visual impairment

For people with a visual impairment access to audiovisual media can be enhanced by Audio Description (AD). AD gives visual information in verbal form. Previous research we have conducted has demonstrated that for AD users, words can be as effective as non-verbal sounds (sound effects) in eliciting presence. However, it has been argued that, to experience emotion and empathy, contextual cues from the soundtrack may suffice. This study explored the extent to which verbal information conveying emotional cues affected blind and partially sighted people's experience of film, using clips known to elicit fear and sadness in sighted viewers. We tested the impact of AD on dimensions of social presence (affect and empathy) as well as spatial presence, ecological validity and engagement. Results differed between emotion category (sadness/fear) but showed the addition of verbal information did not lead to a reduction in presence or in levels of elicited emotion, despite AD partially masking the soundtrack. Comparing text-to-speech delivery with delivery by a human voice, only human voice AD positively enhanced presence and emotion elicitation. This suggests prosody is an critical element of AD content. Another implication is that, for blind and partially sighted people, sound effects and emotive music may be redundant where sufficient information can be accessed from film dialogue. With regard to guiding AD practice, the findings suggest providing suitably emotive AD is a more important consideration than avoiding masking the non-verbal element of film soundtracks.