Visual motherese? Signal‐to‐noise ratios in toddler‐directed television

Abstract

Younger brains are noisier information processing systems; this means that information for younger individuals has to allow clearer differentiation between those aspects that are required for the processing task in hand (the ‘signal’) and those that are not (the ‘noise’). We compared toddler-directed and adult-directed TV programmes (TotTV/ATV). We examined how low-level visual features (that previous research has suggested influence gaze allocation) relate to semantic information, namely the location of the character speaking in each frame. We show that this relationship differs between TotTV and ATV. First, we conducted Receiver Operator Characteristics analyses and found that feature congestion predicted speaking character location in TotTV but not ATV. Second, we used multiple analytical strategies to show that luminance differentials (flicker) predict face location more strongly in TotTV than ATV. Our results suggest that TotTV designers have intuited techniques for controlling toddler attention using low-level visual cues. The implications of these findings for structuring childhood learning experiences away from a screen are discussed.

Infants' visual sustained attention is higher during joint play than solo play: is this due to increased endogenous attention control or exogenous stimulus capture?

“…One telling comparison may be to liken the present findings, that compare infant attention during Joint Play and Solo Play, with previous findings that compare infant attention towards static and dynamic screen stimuli (Courage et al, 2006;Richards, 2010;Shaddy & Colombo, 2004). At the same time, the exogenous influences on gaze behaviour during the viewing of dynamic stimuli are thought to be stronger (Courage et al, 2006;Wass & Smith, 2014a, 2014b, and, most likely because of this, infants' attention durations towards dynamic stimuli are markedly higher than towards static stimuli (Shaddy & Colombo, 2004 (Carpenter et al, 1998), along with superior visual attention control (Niedźwiecka et al, 2017)? At the same time, the exogenous influences on gaze behaviour during the viewing of dynamic stimuli are thought to be stronger (Courage et al, 2006;Wass & Smith, 2014a, 2014b, and, most likely because of this, infants' attention durations towards dynamic stimuli are markedly higher than towards static stimuli (Shaddy & Colombo, 2004 (Carpenter et al, 1998), along with superior visual attention control (Niedźwiecka et al, 2017)?…”

“…Here, similarly, consistent interindividual differences in attention durations towards static and dynamic screen stimuli are observed (Wass, 2014), which probably suggests that endogenous factors influence attention for both types of stimuli. At the same time, the exogenous influences on gaze behaviour during the viewing of dynamic stimuli are thought to be stronger (Courage et al, 2006;Wass & Smith, 2014a, 2014b, and, most likely because of this, infants' attention durations towards dynamic stimuli are markedly higher than towards static stimuli (Shaddy & Colombo, 2004).…”

Toddlers’ Word Learning From Contingent and Noncontingent Video on Touch Screens

“…Perhaps specific contingency facilitates learning by directing attention to relevant information, thereby supporting limited attention skills that otherwise might rely on bottom‐up, stimulus‐driven features (Frank, Vul, & Johnson, ; Kirkorian, Anderson, & Keen, ). If so, perhaps noninteractive video could also support limited attention skills by emphasizing target content with perceptually salient features (movement, contrast; Wass & Smith, ). Future research should assess whether individual differences in visual attention (measured by eye movements) moderate toddlers’ ability to learn from both interactive and noninteractive screens.…”

Free Viewing Gaze Behavior in Infants and Adults

“…Because saliency is confounded with higher‐level features, the extent to which saliency predicts adults’ eye movements may depend on the degree to which saliency is related to semantically informative regions of the stimulus. Indeed, gaze saliency was greater when fixating faces compared to nonface regions, which is characteristic of children's television (Wass & Smith, ). But if gaze saliency were simply the result of looking at faces, why did saliency account for variance in viewing patterns after accounting for face looking?…”

“…If an observer fixates the person, is the fixation the result of low‐level salience or the presence of a social agent? Designers of children's television may exploit the power of saliency to draw attention to social agents: Flicker and feature congestion predict the location of the speaking character's face in toddler‐directed but not adult‐directed television programs (Wass & Smith, ).…”