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Symposium: Eye-tracking and Subtitling

One-day Symposium, hybrid event

8th July 2024

School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts, University of Warwick, UK

Organisers: Dr David Orrego-Carmona, Dr Sijing Lu and Dr Hanyu Wang

Eye-tracking technology has opened avenues for studying how people process, understand and react to subtitled audiovisual content. By tracking viewers’ eye movements and measuring fixations, researchers can gain insights into the cognitive processes involved in reading subtitles while simultaneously processing audio and video information. This one-day symposium will bring together experts at the forefront of this interdisciplinary field and ECRs to take stock of the latest findings, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks related to eye tracking and subtitle reading.

While valuable work has already been done over the last 40 years, there are still many open research questions to explore in this domain. Recent years have seen a refining of hypotheses: studies currently explore how viewer characteristics like age, language proficiency, and provenance impact subtitle reading behaviour and cognitive load, as well as the interplay between subtitle presentation rates, editing and overall comprehension.

This is a hybrid event. Online attendees will be able to follow the live stream of the plenary talks and the roundtable.

Where do we go from now?

Overall, this symposium aims to spark new cross-disciplinary collaboration and highlight promising directions for advancing our understanding of this multimodal processing phenomenon. The event aims to promote the cross-pollination of ideas and foster new collaborative initiatives that can push the boundaries of this field even further. Potential focus areas include the impact of AI and new distribution platforms, post-editing and creativity, combinations of eye tracking with other biometric measures, and deeper examination of how contextual factors like genre, visual presentation, cultural context, and audiovisual complexity shape the subtitle reading experience.

Invited speakers

Participants

This is a free-one-day symposium but places are limited. Priority will be given to ECRs interested in presenting their work during the dedicated poster session.

Currently, there are no more in-person spaces. If you wish to sign up as an online attendee, please complete the form.

Poster proposal

The symposium will feature presentations by the invited speakers as well as a dedicated poster session. Participants are encouraged to propose a poster featuring their work in the field. This could be a completed project, work in progress or initial research ideas.

The poster session will provide an excellent opportunity for attendees to share their latest work, gather feedback, and engage in discussions with fellow researchers in an informal setting. Presenters will have time to pitch their ideas and invite feedback to stimulate the conversation.

We can accommodate posters up to portrait A0 size (841 mm x 1189 mm).

Programme

9:15-9:50

Registration

9:50-10:00

Opening remarks

10:00-10:45

“Studying reading in multimodal contexts: Subtitled film”

Jan-Louis Kruger, Macquarie University

10:45-11:30

“Methodological considerations in eye-tracking research on subtitling”

Agnieszka Szarkowska and Valentina Ragni, University of Warsaw

11:30-12:00

Coffee break

12:00-12:45

Poster booster and session

12:45-1:45

Lunch

1:45-2:30

“Research on creativity in translation using eye-tracking technology: a proposal”

Ana Guerberof Arenas, University of Groningen

2:30-3:15

“The impact of danmu subtitles on the visual attention and comprehension of intralingual subtitled videos: evidence from eye movements and surveys”

Xiaochun Zhang, UCL, and Sijing Lu, University of Warwick, and Siwen Lu, University of Sheffield

3:15-

3:45

Coffee break

3:45-5:00

Roundtable

Eye Tracking and Subtitling Symposium poster

Registration deadlines

Registration with poster proposal: 3rd June

Additional spaces (no poster): 1st July

Online registration: 5th July

Practical information

Venue

Wolfson Research Exchange, University of Warwick Library.

Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

The University of Warwick is a campus university located south-west of Coventry city centre, in England, Great Britain. The nearest major railway station is Coventry. The closest airport is Birmingham International Airport, or there are regular rail services to London for easy access to/from the London airports. You can find detailed information on travel to the University campus here.

For more information: https://warwick.ac.uk/about/visiting/

FAB building