Pace and continuity of television programs: Effects on children's attention and comprehension.

Abstract

Children's tv programs can be distinguished by the processing demands of their format and the pace with which changes occur. High-continuity programs are stories requiring temporal integration of successive scenes for full comprehension. Low-continuity programs are in "magazine" format: Successive bits are independent of one another, and temporal integration across bits is not required for comprehension. Pace is denned as rate of scene and character change in stones and rate of bit change in magazine shows. Sixteen children's tv programs varying in continuity (high vs. low), pace (high vs low), and animation (cartoon vs. live production) were made from broadcast material. Each lasted 15 minutes. Children (N = 160), half in grades K-l and half in grades 3-4, viewed two of the programs and were then tested for recall. The recall task required sequential senation of still photos taken from the program. Older children attended longer and reconstructed sequences better than younger children. High-continuity (story) programs led to greater attention and better recall than low-continuity (magazine) programs. Low-paced shows were recalled better than high-paced shows. Older children recalled best when shown either low pace or story format or both. Young children showed additive increments in recall due to low pace and high continuity: Either alone was better than none, and both was better than either alone. Younger children attended somewhat more to high-than to low-paced shows if they were in magazine format, a weak effect of perceptual salience. Older children attended to high-continuity programs in synchrony with their pace: longer looks to low-paced and shorter looks to high-paced programs. This effect was attributed to schematic and strategic processing by older children when the format justified it. Regression analyses indicated higher correlations between attention and recall for animated stories than for other types of programs, an effect attributed to their relatively high stereotypy in the medium. Age, continuity, and pace effects on recall were not fully accounted for by their effects on attention. Results were interpreted as indicating evidence for development of active, schematic processing of television by children and for strategic attending by older children, based on perceived processing demands. This research was made possible by a grant from the tention spans and need frequent change to Spencer Foundation, which is gratefully acknowledged, maintain their interest. Indeed many of the The authors would also like to express their gratitude to criticisms of fo^ programs are based on the the teachers, administrators, students, and parents of the , , Z ~~ _Uoii~,, Baldwin Elementary School, Baldwin, Kansas. We also Premise that such formats encourage shallow thank Mabel L. Rice, Alice Leary Reitz, Valeria Lovelace, or passive processing, reduced mental effort, and Ellen Wartella for their assistance short attention span, and a taste for percep-Requests for reprints should be sent to John C. Wnght, tua j gimm...

The effect of repetition on imitation from television during infancy

“…This finding leads to a testable hypothesis that the video-deficit effect could also be ameliorated with fewer video demonstrations presented at a slower rate. For elementary school children, low pace appears to be most effective at enhancing story comprehension (Wright et al, 1984). It is not yet clear what sort of pacing would most benefit infants.…”

Sound effects for children's temporal integration of fast‐paced television content

“…Children's comprehension of television content has been assessed through verbal recall measures (Lorch, Anderson, & Levin, 1979;Welch & Watt, 1982), multiple-choice questions (Calvert, Huston, Watkins, & Wright, 1982;Collins, 1983), and recognition of picture sequences (Wright et al, 1984). Measures are assumed to tap different modes of information processing.…”

Gender Stereotyping in Television Commercials Aimed at Children in India

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