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Article published In:
Translation and Interpreting at the Interface of Cognition and Emotion
Edited by Ana María Rojo López and Purificación Meseguer Cutillas
[Translation, Cognition & Behavior 7:1] 2024
► pp. 116–139

When faces don’t lie

Physiology and facial expressions in the reception of audio described porn

ORCID logo | University of Murcia
ORCID logo | University of Murcia
In the last decades, Cognitive Translation Studies (CTIS) have witnessed a growing expansion of Audio Description (AD), with emphasis on experimental studies examining the psychological factors that influence the creation and reception of AD. While most studies have focused on the creation phase of AD, recent reception research has explored emotions, immersion, and presence in the context of AD. A study by Rojo et al. (2021) investigated the impact of AD on the reception of porn, comparing the psychophysiological response of sighted participants watching audiovisual content with blind and sighted participants listening to AD without images. The results indicated no significant differences in physiological and subjective responses. The present study aims at providing further evidence on the participants’ emotional response by analyzing their facial expressions using the FaceReader software (Noldus Information Technology). Unlike cardiac and cortisol responses, the analysis of the participants’ facial expressions reveals some intriguing differences between the groups that point to some emotional differences in the reception of porn.
Keywords: Audio Description, accessibility, porn, emotions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.On the nature and measurement of facial expressions
  • 3.The facial expression of sexual excitement
  • 4.The study
    • 4.1Aim and hypotheses
    • 4.2Participants
    • 4.3Materials and stimuli
    • 4.4Instruments
    • 4.5Procedure
    • 4.6Data processing and statistical analysis
    • 4.7Results
      • 4.7.1Results for the emotion-related categories
      • 4.7.2Results for the individual Action Units
    • 4.8Discussion and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 October 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tcb.00092.car
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