Digital captioning. Effects of color coding and placement in synchronized text-audio presentations

Captioning is the process of providing a synchronized written script (captions) to accompany auditory information. This article describes programs available for captioning digital media on computers, and discusses the results of a study on color-coding and placement of captions. Seventy-two students in the Preparatory Studies Program (PSP) at Gallaudet University (Washington, D.C.) participated in the study (PSP enrolls deaf and hard-of-hearing students and prepares them for college). A 15-minute segment from a Disney film was used in the study. Four versions of digital captions were prepared: (1) captions color-coded for speaker identification, centered at the bottom of the screen; (2) black and white captions, centered at the bottom of the screen; (3) color-coded captions with placement dependent on the location of the speaker; and (4) black and white captions with placement dependent on the speaker's location. Results indicate that comprehension is higher when captions are color-coded for speaker identification than when captions are black and white. There are no significant differences between centered captions and captions with variable placement dependent on location of the speaker. (AEF)