Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Monomodal access to visual information through the auditory channel can impose a greater cognitive load (CL) on blind or partially sighted museum visitors, given the lesser storage capacity of auditory memory and the sequential way in which mental images are created when the input is exclusively auditory. Museum audio description, conveying both visual information and specialized or semi-specialized knowledge, can lead to an even greater CL. We formulated the hypothesis that blind or partially sighted visitors create a more detailed mental image of museum objects and better access museum information when it is translated into an accessible language grounded on easy-read guidelines. However, such an AD might not meet receivers’ expectations. In order to test these hypotheses, we conducted a mixed-method study, in which eight blind and partially sighted participants listened to a simplified AD based on easy-read guidelines and four to a non-simplified version. Recall and degree of adequacy and satisfaction were measured. We concluded that a simplified AD does not improve their mental image and understanding of the museum object and that it negatively influences participants’ opinion on the AD. However, some participants’ proposals along with data concerning the recall variable prove that AD can impose an excessive CL.