Papers by Agnieszka Walczak
British Journal of Visual Impairment, 2017
This article presents a study that tested the impact of audio description (AD) style on dimension... more This article presents a study that tested the impact of audio description (AD) style on dimensions of presence (spatial presence, ecological validity, engagement, and negative effects) in blind and visually impaired audiences. The participants were shown two fragments of a naturalistic drama with two styles of description: ‘standard’ and ‘creative’. While the former followed the principle of objectivity, the latter was an innovative type of AD that included elements of camera work and subjective descriptions of the characters, their actions, and scenes crucial to the plot. The findings show that the emotive AD prompted higher levels of presence for all participants. Overall, the new AD style seemed more natural, especially to participants with recent sight loss. The results suggest that creative scripts may stimulate presence and thus increase the chances of AD users having a more immersive viewing experience.
This paper presents the results of a study aimed at examining the influence of audio described fi... more This paper presents the results of a study aimed at examining the influence of audio described films on foreign vocabulary acquisition among primary school learners with and without vision impairments. The study also tested whether audio description itself can help both sighted and partially sighted children to increase their lexical competence and better understand the content of educational movies. Finally, the study looked into whether audio describing educational films could prove helpful for young viewers with and without vision impairments, and more importantly, whether such audiovisual materials could become an additional didactic tool. The results showed that these hypotheses were supported and that it is worth introducing films with audio description into the school curriculum. The educational value of audio description was confirmed.
Audio description (AD) has become a cultural revolution for the visually impaired; however, the r... more Audio description (AD) has become a cultural revolution for the visually impaired; however, the range of AD beneficiaries can be much broader. We claim that AD is useful for guiding children's attention. The paper presents an eye-tracking study testing the usefulness of AD in selective attention to described elements of a video scene. Forty-four children watched 2 clips from an educational animation series while their eye movements were recorded. Average fixation duration, fixation count, and saccade amplitude served as primary dependent variables. The results confirmed that AD guides children's attention towards described objects resulting e. g., in more fixations on specific regions of interest. We also evaluated eye movement patterns in terms of switching between focal and ambient processing. We postulate that audio description could complement regular teaching tools for guiding and focusing children's attention, especially when new concepts are introduced.
The paper explores the effects of adding audio description to an educational film on children'... more The paper explores the effects of adding audio description to an educational film on children's learning behaviour, manifested by a visual recognition task. We hypothesize that the multimodal educational setting, consisting of both verbal (film dialogue and audio description) and non-verbal (motion pictures) representations of knowledge, fosters knowledge acquisition as it provides information via multiple channels, which in turn strengthens
The aim of this paper is to present the results of a research study on the possibility of using a... more The aim of this paper is to present the results of a research study on the possibility of using audio description (AD) as an additional didactic tool in the education of the blind and partially sighted children. More specifi cally, the study meant to investigate whether and, if so, to what extent adding AD enhances the comprehension of educational fi lms among children and what the possible value of AD in educational settings could be. In addition, the underlying objective of the study was to raise the awareness among teachers about the importance of AD as a means to achieve audiovisual accessibility.
The filmic material employed for the purposes of the study consisted of three episodes from the educational animation series Once Upon a Time..., namely Once Upon a Time... Man (episode America), Once Upon a Time… Life (episode Blood) and Once Upon a Time… Discoverers (episode Newton). A total of 55 children participated in the study. After each screening, the children were invited to take part in a quiz competition, whose aim was to test their level of comprehension of the shown fi lm. To gather children’s responses, the researchers employed innovative clicker devices and supporting software from InterWrite PRS. Both the screenings and the questionnaires with clickers were greeted with much enthusiasm by children and they arouse interest and curiosity also among teachers. The study revealed that AD in educational fi lms helps to develop and retain specialised vocabulary. Moreover, it helps the children to follow the fi lm, thus improving its overall comprehension. It is the researchers’ assumption that AD, through its use of varied word choice, synonyms, metaphors and similes, can boost literacy of the blind and partially sighted children. Finally, a conclusion can be drawn that fi lms with AD could not only complement lessons, but also make them more enjoyable.
Audio description (AD) has become a cultural revolution for the visually impaired; however, the r... more Audio description (AD) has become a cultural revolution for the visually impaired; however, the range of AD beneficiaries can be much broader. We claim that AD is useful for guiding children's attention. The paper presents an eye-tracking study testing the usefulness of AD in selective attention to described elements of a video scene. Forty-four children watched 2 clips from an educational animation series while their eye movements were recorded. Average fixation duration, fixation count, and saccade amplitude served as primary dependent variables. The results confirmed that AD guides children's attention towards described objects resulting e. g., in more fixations on specific regions of interest. We also evaluated eye movement patterns in terms of switching between focal and ambient processing. We postulate that audio description could complement regular teaching tools for guiding and focusing children's attention, especially when new concepts are introduced.
The paper explores the effects of adding audio description to an educational film on children's l... more The paper explores the effects of adding audio description to an educational film on children's learning behaviour, manifested by a visual recognition task. We hypothesize that the multimodal educational setting, consisting of both verbal (film dialogue and audio description) and non-verbal (motion pictures) representations of knowledge, fosters knowledge acquisition as it provides information via multiple channels, which in turn strengthens memory retrieval. In the study we employ eye tracking methodology to examine the recognition of previously seen film material, testing whether audio description promotes recognition- rather than elimination-based decision-making in the visual recognition task. The analysis of first fixation duration and first run fixation count measures in the experimental and control groups partially confirmed our hypotheses. Children in the experimental group generally looked longer at the scenes they had seen, which supports the hypothesis that their decision was based on recognition, whereas children in the control group had longer fixations on scenes they were unfamiliar with, suggesting a decision based on elimination.
Conference Presentations by Agnieszka Walczak
Audiodeskrypcja ang. audio description dodatkowa ścieżka dźwiękowa zawierająca informacje z opi... more Audiodeskrypcja ang. audio description dodatkowa ścieżka dźwiękowa zawierająca informacje z opisem tego, co dzieje się na ekranie, przeznaczona dla osób niewidzących jedna z metod przekładu audiowizualnego AD jako przekład intersemiotyczny według typologii Romana Jakobsona -używa znaków językowych do interpretacji znaków innych systemów semiotycznych technologia:
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Papers by Agnieszka Walczak
The filmic material employed for the purposes of the study consisted of three episodes from the educational animation series Once Upon a Time..., namely Once Upon a Time... Man (episode America), Once Upon a Time… Life (episode Blood) and Once Upon a Time… Discoverers (episode Newton). A total of 55 children participated in the study. After each screening, the children were invited to take part in a quiz competition, whose aim was to test their level of comprehension of the shown fi lm. To gather children’s responses, the researchers employed innovative clicker devices and supporting software from InterWrite PRS. Both the screenings and the questionnaires with clickers were greeted with much enthusiasm by children and they arouse interest and curiosity also among teachers. The study revealed that AD in educational fi lms helps to develop and retain specialised vocabulary. Moreover, it helps the children to follow the fi lm, thus improving its overall comprehension. It is the researchers’ assumption that AD, through its use of varied word choice, synonyms, metaphors and similes, can boost literacy of the blind and partially sighted children. Finally, a conclusion can be drawn that fi lms with AD could not only complement lessons, but also make them more enjoyable.
Conference Presentations by Agnieszka Walczak
The filmic material employed for the purposes of the study consisted of three episodes from the educational animation series Once Upon a Time..., namely Once Upon a Time... Man (episode America), Once Upon a Time… Life (episode Blood) and Once Upon a Time… Discoverers (episode Newton). A total of 55 children participated in the study. After each screening, the children were invited to take part in a quiz competition, whose aim was to test their level of comprehension of the shown fi lm. To gather children’s responses, the researchers employed innovative clicker devices and supporting software from InterWrite PRS. Both the screenings and the questionnaires with clickers were greeted with much enthusiasm by children and they arouse interest and curiosity also among teachers. The study revealed that AD in educational fi lms helps to develop and retain specialised vocabulary. Moreover, it helps the children to follow the fi lm, thus improving its overall comprehension. It is the researchers’ assumption that AD, through its use of varied word choice, synonyms, metaphors and similes, can boost literacy of the blind and partially sighted children. Finally, a conclusion can be drawn that fi lms with AD could not only complement lessons, but also make them more enjoyable.