Very Young Childrens Attention to Childrens Videos as a Function of Program Pacing

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Very Young Childrens Attention to Childrens
Videos as a Function of Program Pacing

• Alice Ann Howard Sandra Calvert
• Childrens Digital Media Center
• Georgetown University

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Very Young Childrens Media Use
(Rideout, Vandewater, Wartella, 2005)
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Pace

• Rate of Scene Change
• (new familiar)/total video minutes
• Rate of Object Change
• (object character)/total video minutes
• Total Rate
• Scene Change Object Change

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Childrens Attention to TV Programs

• Comprehensibility Hypothesis (Anderson Lorch,
  1983)
• children attend to a television program when they
  think they understand what is happening on the
  screen.
• Children as young as 18 months pay more attention
  to shows that are comprehensible than ones that
  are not (i.e., shows that are distorted or
  rearranged) (Pempek et al., 2007)

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Childrens Attention to TV Programs

• Exploration to Search Model (Huston Wright,
  1983)
• Young childrens attention is initially governed
  more by perceptual salience of the audiovisual
  events (e.g., rapid pace, special effects,
  movement of characters)

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Developmental Differences in Attention to Pace
(Wright et al., 1984)

• Younger children (Kindergarteners/1st graders)
  vs.
• Older children (3rd/4th graders)
• Younger children had significantly longer
  durations per look during high-paced than
  low-paced TV programs
• Reverse is true for older children
• Marginal difference in overall duration of
  attention favoring rapid pace for younger
  children (p

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Current Questions

• Does the pace of the program affect very young
  childrens attention to the screen?
• 6-, 9-, and 12-month-olds
• If so, do very young children attend more to high
  or low paced programs?
• Exploration to Search high pace
• Comprehensibility low pace

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Pace Coding

• 56 popular childrens videos were coded
  (Goodrich, Pempek, Calvert, 2009)
• Rate of Scene Change
• (new familiar)/total video minutes
• Rate of Object Change
• (object character)/total video minutes
• Total Rate
• Scene Change Object Change

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Two Highest Paced Videos
Two Lowest Paced Videos
Set 1
BRT
EE
Set 2
BST
TT
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(No Transcript)
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Method

• Participants
• 24 6-month-olds (12 males 6 Set 1,6 Set 2)
• 24 9-month-olds
• 24 12-month-olds
• 58 children (29 males)
• 17 6-mo, 20 9-mo, 21 12-mo
• 81 White, 2 Black, 17 other

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Procedure

• Children were seen in their homes
• Videos were played on a laptop with child seated
  on the floor in front of mother or on mothers
  lap.
• Viewed videos consecutively and were encouraged
  to have toys

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Coding of Attention

• Percent of Looking
• Total time with eyes on the screen divided by
  length of the video
• Average Length per look
• Total time of eyes on the screen divided by
  frequency of looks to the screen
• Reliability 14 of the sample
• r high1 high2 .97
• r low1 low2 .99

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Preliminary Results
n 30
n 28
F(1, 56) 1.54, p NS
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Analyses

• Mixed ANOVA
• Within Subject
• Percent of Looking (High/Low Pace)
• Between Subject
• Gender,
• Age (6, 9, 12 months),
• Pace of First Video (High/Low)

• Mixed ANOVA
• Within Subject
• Average Length of Look (High/Low Pace)
• Between Subject
• Gender,
• Age, (6, 9, 12 months),
• Pace of First Video (High/Low)

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Percent of Looking to the Screen
F(1, 46) 24.85, p 17
Average Length of Look
F(1, 46) 17.22, p 18
Percent of Looking by Pace of 1st Video
t(56) 2.18, p t(30) 6.26, p F(1, 46) 19.81, p 19
Avg. Length of Look by Pace of 1st Video
t(30) 4.15, p F(1, 46) 3.48, p .07
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Percent of Looking by Age
t(16) 2.76, p t(19) 3.87, p F(2, 46) 2.96, p .06
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Discussion

• Across all ages, children paid significantly more
  attention to high paced programs than to low
  paced programs

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Discussion

• Difference in attention by pace in 6-mo and 9-mo
  groups, but not in 12-mo group.
• Supports hypothesis that perceptual salience
  accounts for more attentional variation when
  children are younger (Huston Wright, 1983)
• In addition to the comprehensibility effects
  (Pempek et al., 2007), there are differences
  based on the perceptual salience of formal
  features

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Discussion

• The pace of the first video affected childrens
  percent of looking as well as their average
  length of look
• Attention drops off significantly during Low pace
  if High pace is seen first.
• There is no drop in attention if Low pace is seen
  first.

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Implications

• What do these findings mean for the development
  of attention?

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Thank you