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Can I see that again? Rattle and Animal
Has your child ever seen the same video more than once? If so, this increased viewing may have increased their comprehension. Past research has shown that infants learn less from television than from a live demonstration. In this study we doubled the number of times that infants saw a game repeated on TV.

Click here for PDF file of The Effect of Repetition on Imitation from Television during Infancy.

Question
Does doubling exposure increase 12-, 15-, 18-, and 21-month-old's ability to imitate from a video demonstration?
What did we find?
We found that 15-, 18-, and 21-month-olds were able to imitate as well from video as from a live demonstration after doubling their exposure. Furthermore, this imitation behavior was significantly above their baseline behaviors. For the 15-, 18-, and 21-month-olds, doubling the exposure to the demonstrations of the rattle and animal games increased imitation. The imitation scores of 21-month-olds when exposed to the video demonstration three times, which is equal to the live exposure, lagged significantly behind the live demonstration scores, but their imitation scores were significantly improved upon seeing the video demonstration six times. (see Figure below). For 12-month-olds, the story is a bit different. We found that 12-month-olds were unable to copy the animal toy even when they were shown the actions more often or when the size of the toy was decreased to make it easier to imitate. They were, however, able to imitate the rattle. We found that 12-month-olds can imitate the rattle behavior from a video demonstration after 24 hours after seeing the demonstration twice. Repetition was an effective way of increasing imitation from television.
What did we do?
On the first day, 12-, 15-, 18-, and 21-month-olds watched either a 30-second live or a 60-second video demo of our rattle and animal games. The demos showed a three-step action for each game. We then showed the babies the actual toys the same day, for 12-month-olds, or the next day, for the older infants.
Conclusions
This study has practical applications for both television producers and parents. As producers develop children's educational programming, it is beneficial for them to know that repetition of actions and episodes may enhance learning. This may guide them as they aim to create programs that supplement learning inside and outside of the home. For parents, this study shows how small changes can enhance babies' learning. As with all learning and development, there may be practical steps we, as adults, can take to enhance learning, such as increasing exposure to a toy or game, especially when the game is new. In this study increasing a demonstration from 30 to 60 seconds dramatically increased imitation from television by 12- to 21-month-olds.
Future directions
We are investigating the ability of infants to copy a puppet game. We have added interesting sound effects to our puppet game to make the video demonstration more like the TV that infants often encounter (see Cartoon Sound Effects study). Finally, we are asking parents about what they have noticed about their babies' interaction with television. We are also observing infants while viewing commercially available programming. We will let you know the results of these and other studies soon, so please come back to the website if you are interested in reading more.

We would like to extend our thanks to all parents and babies who have participated. Without your generosity, there would be no findings. If you are interested in learning more about our studies, please contact us and we will be sure to get back to you. We are always looking for new participants to be involved and for current participants to be involved again.

Published abstract
Although television exposure levels during infancy are high, the impact of such exposure on learning is relatively unknown. Initial studies have shown that infants imitate significantly fewer target actions from a televised demonstration than they imitate from a live demonstration. It was hypothesized that increasing the duration of exposure to the videotaped demonstration would increase learning from television. Independent groups of 12- to 21-month-olds were exposed to live or videotaped demonstrations of target actions and imitation of the target actions was measured 24 hours later. The video segment duration was twice that of the live presentation. Doubling exposure increased levels of imitation performance in the video groups to that of the live groups and both groups exceeded baseline performance. These results are consistent with the perceptual encoding impoverishment theory, and we conclude that repeated exposure enhances encoding of the target actions from a 2D television source.
Published Findings
Click here for PDF file of The Effect of Repetition on Imitation from Television during Infancy.
 
 
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