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Infant Attention:Baby Mozart and Sesame Street
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While there has been much research on television viewing during early childhood, there have been very few studies that have investigated infant attention to television. In this study we were interested in how babies typically view videos with their parents or caregivers. We chose popular infant videos and examined factors that can influence their attention patterns.
Click here for PDF file of Infants' Attention and Responsiveness to Television Increases With Prior Exposure and Parental Interaction.
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Question?
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Can infant attention be maintained and optimized during video viewing?
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What did we do?
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We showed 12-, 15-, and 18-month-old infants either Baby Mozart of the Baby Einstein collection or Kids Favorite 2, an Elmo Sing-along from Sesame Street. Half of each respective group had prior exposure to the videos, while half of each group had no prior exposure to the videos. We asked the parents to act as they normally would while their infant was watching a video and we videotaped the session. We looked at how the infants attended to the video by means of looking time and interactions such as pointing, smiling, imitation, and vocalizations. We also looked at parent vocalizations and classified them into categories to see if what the parents said to their infants affected their attention and interaction with the video.
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What did we find? Part 1: Infant Attention
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We found that infants attended more to the video if they had previous exposure, for both the Baby Mozart and the Kids Favorite Sing-along, than if it was their first time viewing it (please see graphs below). The infants watching the Kids Favorite also paid more attention to the familiar characters and songs as opposed to the animated segments that they could not relate to.
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What did we find? Part 2: Parent Vocalizations
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As the study progressed, we started examining the types of things parents were saying to their infants during the video. We became interested in the idea that interactions during the video could work much like interactions during book reading in that they could enhance the infant's experience or understanding. During book reading parents often point things out to their child, relate things back to their child's own experiences or ask questions. Utilizing the techniques used to study interactions during book reading, we began to classify parent vocalizations along similar terms. The most common video-oriented vocalizations we found, similar to that of book reading, included questions, labels, and attention eliciting statements. Some questions included, "Who is that?" or "Is that Elmo?" The labeling category included both labels, "Those are seals", and descriptions, "The seals are going around and around." Some examples of attention seeking statements could be, "Look at that!" It could also include singing along with the music or correction or confirming such as, "No that's not Elmo, it's Zoe." These vocalization patterns were similar for both videos and for infants that had or had not been previously exposed to the videos. We found that the more parents asked questions and described the content of the video, the more infants attended to and interacted with the video. These findings suggest that parents are playing an important role during co-viewing and infants are responding to parent information in analogous ways to how they respond during book reading. The implication is co-view with your infant and provide context for your baby, ask questions and provide labels and descriptions.
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Conclusions and Future Directions
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Infant attention can be maintained while video watching. Their attention can be maximized by familiarization with the video and/or characters and songs. Parents seem to interact with their infants similarly for both book reading and video watching; perhaps these interactions can help infants get the most out of their viewing experiences as discourse with parents can aid comprehension while book reading. We are currently examing viewing patterns with parents and their 6- and 9-month-olds.
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Published Abstract
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This study examined the relation between early television exposure and parental interaction style during infant-directed television programs on two outcomes; infant looking time and infant responsiveness. By quasi-experimental design half of the 12- to 18-month-old infants had prior exposure to the program content and the other half did not. Cluster analysis based on parental verbalizations revealed three types of parental co-viewing style; high, medium and low scaffold. Looking time was significantly higher for infants previously exposed to these videos than for those who were not. Infant looking time was also significantly higher, and infants responded more, when parents provided high levels of scaffolding in the form of questions and labels/descriptions. The results suggest that both prior exposure and parental style are associated with infant attention and responsiveness to television and have important implications for both parents and television producers.
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Published Findings
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Click here for PDF file of Infants' Attention and Responsiveness
to Television Increases With Prior
Exposure and Parental Interaction.
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