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. 2015 Oct;2(1):195-202.
doi: 10.1177/2372732215602130. Epub 2015 Oct 1.

Video Captions Benefit Everyone

Morton Ann Gernsbacher  1
Affiliations

Video Captions Benefit Everyone

Morton Ann Gernsbacher. Policy Insights Behav Brain Sci. 2015 Oct.

Abstract

Video captions, also known as same-language subtitles, benefit everyone who watches videos (children, adolescents, college students, and adults). More than 100 empirical studies document that captioning a video improves comprehension of, attention to, and memory for the video. Captions are particularly beneficial for persons watching videos in their non-native language, for children and adults learning to read, and for persons who are D/deaf or hard of hearing. However, despite U.S. laws, which require captioning in most workplace and educational contexts, many video audiences and video creators are naïve about the legal mandate to caption, much less the empirical benefit of captions.

Keywords: D/deaf; captions; literacy; reading; second language; video.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Data from Nugent (1983).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Data from Linebarger, Piotrowski, and Greenwood (2010).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Data from Yoshino, Kano, and Akahori (2000).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Data from Huang and Eskey (1999–2000).
Figure 5
Figure 5
Data from Garza (1991).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

Benefits of Captions: D/Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children, Adolescents, and Adults

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Benefits of Captions: Hearing Children and Adolescents

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