Workload Evaluations for Closed Captioners

Abstract

Live captioning in broadcasting involves the translation from spoken words in broadcasted programming to text equivalents, speaker identification and some non-speech audio information in real-time where there is little or no opportunity for editing, or correction. Some of this live content can be too fast to type, and/or read, which then can translate into difficulties and barriers for viewers. Recently, paraphrasing has been permitted in order to attempt to mitigate some of these difficulties, but different cognitive elements must be recruited compared with verbatim translation. This research presents preliminary results of live captioner’s subjective mental workload (SMW) using the NASA TLX, and their experiences with paraphrasing. We hypothesize that the cognitive processes of paraphrasing increase SMW. Results indicate that live captioners experience high SMW particularly for fast-paced sports. Paraphrasing may contribute to higher perceived SMW for live captioning fast-paced sports, talk shows and weather.