Bases cognitivas del acceso al conocimiento en audiodescripción museística: Una aproximación experimental

Abstract

Only two decades ago scholars started becoming interested in an emerging intersemiotic translation modality: audio description. This PhD dissertation revolves around museum audio description, an accessibility service on the rise, though still less widespread than screen audio description. According to guidelines and practitioners, the main goal of an audio descriptive guide is that blind and partially sighted people can see the audio described exhibit in their mind’s eye. Knowing how we build mental images or representations drawing on linguistic input alone and how sensory experiences could shape these images or representations is pivotal to choose the right audio descriptive style, which might be distinct from the most widespread one. Here, we review findings from cognitive psychology and neuroscience on language processing, mental image creation and spatial cognition. Considering these findings, we advance that an audio description tailored to how blind and partially sighted people conceptualize and perceive the world can paint more accurate pictures in their minds and enhance the resulting aesthetic experience. This overarching hypothesis is put to the test in a study with 53 blind and partially sighted participants. Conceived as an online audio descriptive visit, this study compares two audio descriptive styles differing in the adopted perspective. The first audio descriptive style, which is the most widespread in practice, takes the perspective of an observer. Conversely, the embodied audio descriptive style adopts an inner perspective and invites the listener into the painting. Overall, participants did not build more vivid mental images or representations after listening to the embodied audio descriptions. In contrast, the paintings described with this inner perspective elicited a more intense aesthetic experience, as predicted. In addition, this study has shown that a single audio descriptive style is unlikely to accommodate for blind and partially sighted people’s preferences. It has also unearthed that picturing described information can be challenging for this audience. Given these results, we encourage further research into how visual information can be intersemiotically translated so that blind and partially sighted people can picture the exhibits in their minds satisfactorily. We also underline the importance of conducting longitudinal studies which allow for assessing not only the short-term influence of the variable or variables under study, but also their impact in the long run. These studies could reveal whether an effect which goes undetected emerges weeks or months after the first study session. Furthermore, these studies would open the door to researching the transformative power of the visual arts in the lives of blind and partially sighted people.