Approaching engagement in audio description

Humans’ attraction to fiction is believed to respond to a search for pleasure, entertainment or enjoyment. Readers and film viewers engage with books and movies to participate in an experience that will provide some kind of gratification. However, the mechanisms that lead to engagement with written and audiovisual narratives are highly complex and not yet fully understood.

This paper constitutes a theoretical approach to engagement in audio description. Drawing on literature from Psychology and Media Studies, it will be argued that engagement is facilitated by comprehension and immersion. An insight on these intricate mental processes will be provided by dwelling on the creation of mental models, the feeling of being transported to the narrative world and the development of affective dispositions towards fictional characters. The close relationship between comprehension and immersion will then be unraveled, before some strategies that could enhance engagement in audio described films are outlined.