The Ups and Downs of Attention to Television

Abstract

Children have previously been shown to redirect their attention actively away from Sesame Street segments rendered less comprehensible by either random ordering of scenes or alterations of the audio track (Greek or backward speech). In this study, the visual attention of 60 children, ages 3.5, 5, and 6.5, was tracked for smaller time units and showed an early (though not immediate) increase in attention to random segments, suggesting an attempt to deal with difficult but seemingly accessible content. Attention to segments with incomprehensible language decreased quickly and stayed low for all ages. Analyses of lengths of individual looks at television replicated the attentional inertia phenomenon, but with noteworthy differences between the three types of segments, and especially for looks at the television during latter parts of segments. The findings are interpreted in terms of Huston and Wright's sampling model of attention. Surprisingly, there was little evidence of developmental changes in these results.