This paper addresses intralingual captions called “impact captions” (Park 2009)
that have become an integral part of entertainment TV programmes in parts of
Asia. These captions are different from the mainstream intralingual captions designed for accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. Aimed at enhancing
the entertainment value of a programme for hearing viewers, impact captions are
designed to draw the viewer’s attention to particular elements according to the
TV producer’s perspective. Despite the prevalent and increasing use of such captions, however, they are created without formal guidelines at the discretion of TV
producers. Focusing on these novel captions which fall outside the norms of TV
captions elsewhere, this paper discusses their impact on viewers while exploring
methodological issues in eye-tracking research. The initial experiment results show
few fixations in the caption area; despite the participants declaring that they read
the captions, viewers fixate far more on the middle region of the screen where
faces are shown. The paper discusses the limitations and advantages of reception
studies based on eye-tracking while contributing towards further refinement of
empirically-oriented reception studies in audiovisual translation (AVT) research
