The Annenberg School for Communication: Children & Media

Research: Attention

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Broadly speaking, our attention research is aimed at understanding the content children focus upon when interacting with media, as well as uncovering possible reasons for this attention.  By learning the reasons for attention, as well as knowing what children specifically attend to while viewing, we hope to make significant advances in understanding what children comprehend from media as well as why they comprehend it.

Using eyetracking technology, we are currently focusing on children's attention to onscreen print.  Ultimately, we hope to provide media producers with suggestions on how to incorporate onscreen print in their media products such that maximum attention and comprehension result.

Reports

Attending to Onscreen Print in Educational Programming: The Eye Movements of Children and Adults

Vaala, S., Lapierre, M., & Linebarger, D. L. (2009). Attending to onscreen print in educational programming: the eye movements of children and adults.  Philadelphia, PA: Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

Introducing young at-risk children to educational television which uses onscreen print, is a viable method for increasing the number of high-quality early language and literacy experiences in their lives. In previous studies where educational television stimuli contained onscreen text, researchers speculated that literacy gains were, in part, related to the onscreen text; yet, this hypothesis has not been formally tested.  There is reason to expect that including onscreen print will aid young, emergent readers, as this technique enables visual redundancy of words as they are spoken aloud.  Onscreen text is also a means of exposing emergent readers to print in a stimulating and meaningful context.  Embedding print in appealing programming may lessen or overcome any hesitancy or lack of motivation young children feel about learning to read (Linebarger, 2001).  Clearly, for onscreen print to be an effective teaching feature for emergent readers, viewers must visually attend to the words.  Yet, there is a general lack of research regarding what factors influence children’s attention to onscreen text or the degree to which their attention to the text subsequently impacts comprehension and literacy skill development.

The present study uses eye-tracking techniques to compare young children’s visual attention to televised text displayed in literacy-focused educational programming to that of adults viewing the same stimuli.  Specifically, we explored visual fixation to onscreen text by three- to six-year-old children and college undergraduates while viewing a segment of Between the Lions.  The amount of time spent looking at onscreen text as well as the length of time to first look at onscreen text were examined in scenes containing varying degrees of text complexity and non-textual movement, as well as presence or absence of verbal redundancy of the text. 

Onscreen Print and Eye-Tracking

Lapierre, M. & Linebarger, D.L. (2008). Onscreen Print and Eye-Tracking. A final report prepared for Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Philadelphia, PA: Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

A recent focus of our Center involves attempts to understand the impact on-screen text has on young media users (Linebarger, Lapierre & Vaala; 2007). While on-screen text has been a featured element of educational television since its inception, there is no definitive evidence regarding its worth as a pedagogical tool for enhancing literacy skills. In addition, we have not, as a research community, identified the elements of text that will best encourage young viewers to attend to on-screen text. In the picture book reading literature, children spent little time attending to the text in story books. Consequently, the purposes of this study are to understand what elements of onscreen text generate the most child attention and whether attention increases the child’s literacy skills and their development as a reader.

Music Interferes with Learning from Television during Infancy

Barr, R. & Linebarger, D.L. (2008). Music Interferes with Learning from Television during Infancy.  Philadelphia, PA: Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

Infants are exposed to a variety of infant-directed videotapes that are often accompanied by instrumental music soundtracks. In the current study, music was added to a brief video segment in order to examine its effects on deferred imitation by 6-, 12-, and 18-month-old infants. Transfer of information was indexed via deferred imitation of the target actions following a 24 hr delay. An instrumental music soundtrack was played during a live or video puppet demonstration. For half the children the music context was also reinstated at the time of test. Performance by experimental groups was compared to that of a baseline control group that participated in the test session without prior exposure to the demonstration. Regardless of group, attention was high averaging between 81-91% to the live and video demonstrations. Imitation performance was above baseline for the live groups but not for the video groups regardless of music context at test. Furthermore, there were also age-related changes. The 12-month-olds also performed at baseline in the live groups. We conclude that the music track creates additional cognitive load and inhibits information processing of the imitation task. Music may impair an infant’s ability to translate information from a two-dimensional to three-dimensional world even if the auditory context remains the same.

Complexity, Movement, and Text Familiarity: Correlates of Visual Attention to Onscreen Print

Linebarger, D.L., Lapierre, M., & Vaala, S. (2007). Complexity, Movement, and Text Familiarity: Correlates of Visual Attention to Onscreen Print.  Philadelphia, PA: Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

Research indicates that educational television can be a valuable tool in building children’s language and literacy skills (Linebarger, Kosanic, Greenwood, & Doku, 2004; Linebarger, 2001). A common technique among educational television programs is to include text on the screen, enabling visual redundancy of words as they are spoken aloud. Although this is a popular practice, there is a general lack of research regarding what factors influence children’s attention to onscreen text, and the degree to which their attention to the text impacts literacy and comprehension. The present study used eye-tracking techniques to examine children’s visual attention to text in the presence of other visual stimuli and movement on screen.  Results suggest that the degree of onscreen movement and text complexity are particularly influential on children’s visual attention to onscreen text. 

Healthy Minutes: Impact of Iowa Public Television's Healthy Minutes Interstitials on Preschool Children

Linebarger, D.L. (2006). Healthy Minutes: Impact of Iowa Public Television’s Healthy Minutes Interstitials on Preschool Children.  Philadelphia, PA: Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.

Some of the very best educational and appealing television can be found in the short public service announcements or interstitials that air between children's programs. The Healthy Minutes interstitials developed by Iowa Public Television (IPTV) have the ability to enhance learning, extend knowledge and teach important health-related messages. It is important to evaluate the extent to which these messages attract young children’s attention; the degree to which the interstitials support children’s comprehension of the actual messages as well as the degree to which children are able to transfer these messages to novel contexts (e.g., generalization of these messages) and the extent that young children rate these messages as appealing (or not). The purpose of this evaluation was to examine the educational potential of IPTV’s Healthy Minutes interstitial messages.  Results suggest that Healthy Minutes message were successful in teaching children important health-related information. 

Presentations

Eyes on Screen: Effects of Age, Text Complexity and Movement on Children’s Attention to Onscreen Text

Lapierre, M.A., Linebarger, D.L., & Vaala, S.E. (2009, April). Eyes on screen: Effects of age, text complexity and movement on children’s attention to onscreen text. Poster session presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.

The poster presents results of a study we conducted to determine what factors influence attention to on-screen text featured within educational programming. Many educational shows use on-screen text as a way to help young children become more familiar with print, yet few studies have been done to test whether children attend to it. We were specifically interested in whether the age of the child, textual complexity, character/background movement and/or scene placement influenced attention. Our results indicate that older children are more likely to attend to text, that increasing the complexity of the text decreases attention and that children's attention to print wanes over time. Furthermore, we found a significant interaction between text complexity and movement, such that children were not differentially impacted by text complexity when there were high amounts of movement. However, when movement was low, children attended much more to simpler text than complex text. This set of findings offer further support for both the traveling lens model and cognitive load theory, as we found that children will attend to educational media up to a certain point yet when that content becomes too difficult for the child they become less likely to attend. In addition, our findings suggest that if the producers of educational media want to increase attention to text, they would be well served to produce media that feature reduced movement and less complex text. 

Complexity, Movement, and Text Familiarity: Correlates of Visual Attention to Onscreen Print

Vaala, S. & Lapierre, M. (2008, November). Complexity, Movement, and Text Familiarity: Correlates of Visual Attention to Onscreen Print.  Paper  presented at the meeting of the National Communication Association, San Diego, CA.

Many television programs designed to increase young children’s literacy skills feature onscreen text as a way to teach these skills (e.g., Between the Lions). Using theoretical frameworks laid out by both the traveling lens and cognitive load models, we tested whether children attended to onscreen print and whether the degree of onscreen movement or the level of textual complexity moderated attention to text. The results indicated that the longest looks and the greatest percentage of time spent fixating print occurred when movement and text complexity were low.  Further, children spent more time fixating text during the early video scenes compared with the later scenes. Children whose mothers possessed at least a college degree were fixated text for longer periods of time compared with children whose mothers reported less education. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.