Caption speed and viewer comprehension of television programs. Final report

This final report discusses the outcomes of the third in a series of studies related to the speed with which captions appear on television programs. Video segments captioned at different speeds were shown to 1,102 subjects (aged 11-95) with and without hearing impairments, and the subjects then responded to test items based on the captions in the videos. The caption speeds ranged from 80 words-per-minute (wpm) to 220 wpm. One set of test items was based directly on facts given in the captions. Another set of items was based on inferences that could be made from caption information. Overall, there was no significant relationship between test scores and caption speed. Test scores were compared over various demographic categories. The study did not find a meaningful relationship between age and mean test scores. The mean test scores of females equaled or exceeded the mean test scores of males at all caption speed levels. Subjects who were junior high school students remembered facts as well as the other subjects did, but seemed less able to draw conclusions based on such facts. Overall, nonstudents tended to have slightly higher mean scores than students. (Contains 22 tables; appendices contain videoscripts, a demographic questionnaire, fact tests, narrative tests, and item response distributions). (CR)