The Effects of TV Program Comprehensibility on Preschool Children's Visual Attention to Television.

ANDERSON, DANIEL R , LORCH, ELIZABETH PUCZLES, FIEU3, DIANE ERICKSON, and SANDERS, JEANNE The Effects of TV Program ComprehensibdUy on Preschool Chddren's Vtsud Attention to Television GHBLD DEVELOPMENT, 1981, 52, 151-157 2 studies tested the hypothesis that TV program comprehensibihty is a major determmant of preschoolers' attenbon to television The first study found that 3and 5-year-olds' visual attention to "Sesame Street" was enhanced m the presence of dialogue m which the referent was concretely present either visually or auditorily The second study experimentally vaned comprehensibihty by randomly editing scenes withm "Sesame Street" bits, by subsbtutmg foreign language dialogue, or by subsbtutmg the original dialogue backward, utterance for utterance, thus retaming hp synch Relabve to undistorted "Sesame Street" bits, the foreign dialogue and backward dialogue bits produced substanbally lower visual attenbon m 2-, 3 5-, and 5-year-old children The randomly edited bits provided only small decrements m attenbon, but these bits were rated by adults to be significantly more understandable than bits with distorted dialogue The findings are mconsistent with the popular concepbon of young children's television viewing as being primarily determmed by superficial producbon features

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