TY - JOUR AU - Gerber-Morón, Olivia AU - Szarkowska, Agnieszka AU - Woll, Bencie PY - 2018/06/30 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - The impact of text segmentation on subtitle reading JF - Journal of Eye Movement Research JA - JEMR VL - 11 IS - 4 SE - Articles DO - 10.16910/11.4.2 UR - https://bop.unibe.ch/JEMR/article/view/4267 SP - AB - Understanding the way people watch subtitled films has become a central concern for subtitling researchers in recent years. Both subtitling scholars and professionals generally believe that in order to reduce cognitive load and enhance readability, line breaks in two-line subtitles should follow syntactic units. However, previous research has been inconclusive as to whether syntactic-based segmentation facilitates comprehension and reduces cognitive load. In this study, we assessed the impact of text segmentation on subtitle processing among different groups of viewers: hearing people with different mother tongues (English, Polish, and Spanish) and deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing people with English as a first language. We measured three indicators of cognitive load (difficulty, effort, and frustration) as well as comprehension and eye tracking variables.  Participants watched two video excerpts with syntactically and non-syntactically segmented subtitles. The aim was to determine whether syntactic-based text segmentation as well as the viewers’ linguistic background influence subtitle processing. Our findings show that non-syntactically segmented subtitles induced higher cognitive load, but they did not adversely affect comprehension. The results are discussed in the context of cognitive load, audiovisual translation, and deafness. ER -