Form and Content: Looking at Visual Features of ...

Copyright 1999 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0012-1649/99/$3.00

Developmental Psychology 1999, Vol. 35, No. 4, 1156-1167

Form and Content: Looking at Visual Features of Television Kelly L. Schmitt

Daniel R. Anderson and Patricia A. Collins

University of Pennsylvania

University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Television viewing at home by 50 individuals in 5 age groups (2-, 5-, 8-, 12-year-olds, and adults) was recorded on 1-s time-lapse videotapes over 10-day periods. Coding was based on 5-min point samples. Analysis examined looking at the TV screen in relation to the visual presence of the features cuts, movement, animation, man, woman, child, and nonhuman; content features were child vs. adult programming and overt purposeful character behavior. Cuts, movement, and overt purposeful character behavior were positively related to looking independent of child vs. adult programming. Associations with looking for the remaining features depended on the viewer's age or sex or type of content within which they occurred.

Television is widely believed to influence the development of cognition, attitudes, and social behavior (Huston et al., 1992). Any theory that attempts to account for that influence must consider the nature of television viewing itself, including attention to TV (cf. Anderson & Bryant, 1983; Hawkins & Pingree, 1981). A major aspect of attention to television is simply looking at the TV screen. Looking is a prerequisite for the acquisition of visual information and is empirically associated with the acquisition of auditory information (Field & Anderson, 1985; Lorch, Anderson, & Levin, 1979). An understanding of the determinants of looking at TV, moreover, can facilitate the design of educational TV programs (Anderson, 1998; Anderson & Field, 1983; Lesser, 1974, 1977). In naturalistic settings, viewers may look for long periods of time, they may divide their looking between the television and some other activity, or they may refrain from looking at the screen at all (Allen, 1965; Anderson & Field, 1991; Bechtel, Achelpohl, & Akers, 1972; Gunter, Furnham, & Lineton, 1995). Looking at TV, moreover, follows a developmental course. It increases from fairly low average levels during early childhood to a peak near (percentage of time looking at the screen while with TV)

Kelly L. Schmitt, Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania; Daniel R. Anderson and Patricia A. Collins, Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The data collection for this study was originally funded by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. Videotape coding was funded by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Spencer Foundation, and the Markle Foundation. Analysis of the data and preparation of this article was funded by a grant from the Markle Foundation and a traineeship from the National Institute of Mental Health. Many people contributed to this project at many stages. We wish especially to thank the individuals who assisted with the coding of the videotapes specific to this report: Kelly O'Rourke, Ann Dacey, Heather Dondis, and Jennifer Hastings. We also wish to thank David Hosmer for statistical advice and Aletha Huston and John Wright (University of Texas at Austin) for use of the CRITC database for TV program categorization. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kelly L. Schmitt, Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3620 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].

during late childhood, and declines to an average of about 60% among adults (Anderson, Lorch, Field, Collins, & Nathan, 1986). Some variability in looking at TV is due to distractions provided by other viewers and the viewing environment (Anderson, Lorch, Smith, Bradford, & Levin, 1981; Lorch et al., 1979; Pezdek & Hartmann, 1983; Sproull, 1973). Most, however, resides in the dynamic attentional interaction of the viewer with the ongoing form and content of television. The present research examines children and adults looking at television's form and content features during ordinary viewing. Huston and Wright (1983) defined a formal feature as any characteristic of television that can be deployed across a wide range of content. For example, cuts, or sudden changes of camera perspective or scene, are structural elements found in professional TV productions and may be used with almost any content. Content features, on the other hand, convey meaning and can be construed broadly, such as "programs for children," or more narrowly, such as specific kinds of character behaviors. The distinction between form and content features should not be overdrawn because they are deeply intertwined. Cuts, for example, are often used as syntactic elements to convey content. A cut from an exterior shot of a building to an interior shot may be used to establish the location of the subsequent action. Rapid cutting between characters or locations can convey a feeling of excitement. Three theories have been proposed that developmentally address the role of form and content features in determining attention to television. Singer (1980) provided the first and simplest theory: that attention to TV is driven by changes in formal features. Specifically, children's attention is reflexively driven by visual changes associated with the salient formal features cuts and movement: "the constant movement and pattern of change that characterize the screen produces a continuous series of orienting reflexes in us, and it is hard to habituate to the set" (Singer, 1980, p. 46). Singer (1980) hypothesized that cuts and movement are reduced in importance for adults: "For adults, of course, such extremely rapid shifts are not as necessary for the maintenance of attention to the set" (p. 38). In contrast, Anderson and his colleagues (Anderson & Lorch, 1983; Anderson & Smith, 1984) theorized that looking at TV is 1156

LOOKING AT TELEVISION

driven by comprehension of content. In their view, looking is under active cognitive control by the TV viewer and is primarily in the service of comprehension activities. Viewers look most at content that is optimally understandable. Television's forms are related to looking to the degree to which they function as learned cues to understandable and entertaining programming. If a feature predicts age-appropriate content, it elicits or sustains attention, with attention being further sustained or lost by the subsequent meaning of the content to the viewer. In particular, child characters, nonhuman characters, and animation are cues that the content is for children. Child viewers should look relatively more in response to these cues than should adults. Adult men, on the other hand, are ordinarily cues that the content is for adults. Child viewers, but not adult viewers, should reduce looking in the presence of adult men (also see Alwitt, Anderson, Lorch, & Levin, 1980). Anderson and Lorch (1983) discussed cuts and movement in relation to the comprehensibility of programming, which contrasts with Singer's (1980) discussion of these features as structural elements. In discussing movement, Anderson and Lorch (1983) noted that for children, "content conveyed through motion is explicit, concrete, and visual. Comprehension of such content should benefit from visual attention" (p. 29). This argument implies that viewers look more during movement because movement tends to convey central information about the narrative or expository flow that is understandable to a young child. Cuts, on the other hand, frequently convey critical information about time, place, and action, so viewers should learn to attend to the information following a cut (see Anderson & Smith, 1984, for a discussion). Huston and Wright (1983, 1989) provided a theory based on the attention development theory of Wright and Vlietstra (1975). Their theory posits that children move from a predominant "exploration" mode early in development to a "search" mode as they gain cognitive maturity and experience with the medium. Although perceptually salient features initially drive young children's attention to television, they learn through experience that formal features may signal relevant content as well as convey content. For example, cuts may initially elicit attention because they are salient visual changes, but as children gain cognitive maturity and experience with the medium, they may attend to cuts because these features are important for comprehension of content. In addition, viewing becomes more related to factors of individual relevance to children as they learn to search for particular kinds of program content. In many respects, the exploration-search theory is a more comprehensive theory that is inclusive of the orienting reaction theory of Singer (1980) and the comprehension-driven attention theory of Anderson and Lorch (1983). In the present research, we examined looking at TV across a broad range of content and a wide range of ages as it naturally occurred in homes. We examined looking in relation to cuts, movement, animation, and character types (men, women, children, and nonhumans). We also examined the broad content feature adult versus child programming and the more specific content feature overt purposeful character behavior. Three prior studies have analyzed looking in the presence and absence of some of the features examined here. Anderson and Levin (1976) observed 1- to 4-year-old children presented with a single episode of Sesame Street viewed in a

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laboratory. Alwitt et al. (1980) studied 3- to 5-year-olds during three 1-hr laboratory-viewing sessions during which a variety of children's programs and commercials were shown. Both studies found that movement, cuts, and animation were associated with enhanced looking. Looking was depressed in the presence of men (relative to the absence of men) and slightly enhanced in the presence of women. Child TV characters received enhanced looking, as did nonhumans. Age effects were generally in the direction of larger effects in older preschoolers (also see Levin & Anderson, 1976). Calvert, Huston, Watkins, and Wright (1982), in a laboratorybased study with kindergarteners as the younger age group and third and fourth graders as the older age group, found enhanced looking at movement in a half-hour children's program (Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids). Distinguishing rapid movement (which they referred to as action) from moderate movement, they reported a tendency for younger children to attend relatively more to rapid movement (roughly equivalent to the definition of movement used in the present study) and older children to attend relatively more to moderate movement. The small amount of available research has produced consistent results suggesting generality. An important difference between the prior research and the present study is that the prior studies examined children's viewing in laboratory contexts using relatively small amounts of TV programming designed for children. The present research, in contrast, recorded TV viewing over 10day periods as it naturally occurred in homes. The programs included a large variety of adult and child content, and the viewers were adults as well as children. The primary purpose of this study was to replicate the laboratory findings across a wide range of content types and to extend the observations to a much greater age range of viewers. The study also determined whether the relationships differ in the context of child versus adult programming as experienced by child and adult viewers. The present study was not designed to test the three theories of attention to television and cannot conclusively do so. Nevertheless, some of the analyses examined plausible predictions by the theories. Consider, for example, Singer's (1980) assertion that in young children, the relationship of cuts to looking is based solely on the power of cuts to elicit attention orienting but that this mechanism is less important for adults' attention. If so, cuts should have a positive relationship to looking by young children regardless of whether the content within which the feature occurs is directed at children or adults. The relationship should be reduced in older children and especially adults. Although the videotapes analyzed in the present research were recorded in 1980 and 1981, there are no data indicating that the form and content features of concern in the present study are of less significance today than they were then. In fact, all of the features are fully characteristic of contemporary television.

Method Data for this study were collected as part of a larger investigation of children's television viewing behavior conducted in Springfield, Massachusetts, during 1980 and 1981. Families with a child within 3 months of the 5th birthday and a working TV set were eligible to participate. Cameras were installed in the homes of 106 families; 99 of these installations

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yielded usable videotapes. Detailed descriptions of these families may be found in Anderson, Field, Collins, Lorch, and Nathan (1985).

Sample Participants were selected from a pool of 448 individuals from the 99 families who provided usable videotapes. To ensure statistical independence in viewing behavior, we used participants from different families. Participants were selected from the larger pool on the basis of the following conditions: (a) The camera was positioned such that it captured the majority of the potential viewing area; (b) the TV images were clear and visible for nearly all of the recording; and (c) the participant was present in the viewing room for a minimum of 3 hr during the 10-day period. Participant selection involved sampling until 10 participants at each age (5 of each sex) were found. This resulted in inclusion of one family member from 50 of the 99 families. Participants included ten 2-year-olds (mean age = 2 years 5 months; range = 2 years 2 months to 2 years 8 months), ten 5-year-olds (mean age = 4 years 11 months; range = 4 years 10 months to 5 years 1 month), ten 8-year-olds (mean age = 7 years 11 months; range = 7 years 4 months to 8 years 10 months), ten 12-year-olds (mean age = 1 1 years 8 months; range = 10 years 11 months to 12 years 11 months), and 10 adults (mean age = 31 years 7 months; range = 25 to 42 years). There were 5 male and 5 female participants at each age level. Adults were parents of a 5-year-old child, and 2-, 8-, and 12-year-olds were siblings of a 5-year-old (but from different families than the 5-year-olds in this study). Because one of the selection requirements for the larger study was that the 5-year-old child be within 3 months of the 5th birthday, there was more variability in age within the other groups. All but 2 of the children from the 50 families had at least one sibling (M = 1.82). Participants were predominantly middle-class and Caucasian (one 5-year-old was Hispanic). The average parents' education was 15 years, and the average Hollingshead index (Hollingshead, 1975) was 2, which comprises medium business, minor professional, and technical occupations. In addition, almost all of the mothers were homemakers, and all of the fathers were employed in white-collar or skilled blue-collar positions. For a more detailed description of the families, see Anderson et al. (1985).

Videotaping Procedure Recording equipment was always placed in the primary television viewing room and any other room in which television was viewed on a regular basis. The recording apparatus consisted of two video cameras connected to an enclosed cart containing a time-lapse video recorder, a time-date generator, control circuitry, and a screen splitter. One camera was equipped with a wide-angle lens and was placed to cover as much of the viewing room as possible. The other camera was equipped with a zoom lens that was focused on the television set. The videodeck recorded only while the television was on. The image from the wide-angle lens was continuously recorded at a rate of approximately one videoframe per second. Every 18 s, a 6-s image of the TV screen (from the second camera) was inserted in the lower right-hand corner of the composite video image (hereinafter referred to as inserts). The time and date were continuously superimposed. A small red light was mounted on the cart, which contained the recorder and control circuitry. After approximately 26 hr of television viewing time, the light flashed signaling the parent to change the tape. No parent failed to change a cassette tape as indicated by the fact that no tapes were recorded to the very end. One day of recording was lost (because of equipment failure or scheduling conflicts) from a 2-year-old girl, a 12-year-old girl, an 8-year-old boy, and an adult male participant. Two days of recording were lost from an 8-year-old girl and two 8-year-old boys.

Videotape Coding Procedure and Apparatus Coding was accomplished by way of computer-assisted videotape coding systems. Each coding system consisted of a TV monitor, a computer terminal/keyboard, a control box, a Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers time-code reader, a computer, and a videocassette deck. The time-code reader was interfaced to a microcomputer, which in turn was interfaced to the videocassette deck. A control panel allowed the coder to control the videocassette deck and push buttons representing events of interest. Initial coding of the videotapes identified the points of entry and exit from the viewing area. These points defined the regions of videotape that contained recordings of each participant's TV viewing behavior. Using a computer program that automatically advanced the tape to a point of entry to the viewing area, the tapes were time-sampled every 5 min of cumulative time the participant spent in the viewing room. The computer program defined a 30-s coding window beginning at the point of 5 min (300 s) of cumulative time spent with TV. The coder advanced the tape through the 30-s window until an insert of the TV screen appeared. On the last frame of the insert, the coder identified a number of program characteristics. The exception to this involved the coding of cuts, which were identified by viewing the entire 6-s insert. The next frame following the last frame of the insert was coded for the participant's looking behavior. Therefore, all but one of the program and viewer codes were coded during one frame, and all of the features were coded during the frame prior to looking with the exception of cuts, which could have occurred as much as 6-s earlier. When this was accomplished, the computer automatically advanced the tape to the point at which 5 more minutes of cumulative viewing had occurred and the process was repeated. At any time during the coding process, the coder could move the tape backward or forward, deleting and correcting button pushes as necessary. If the participant left the room before an image of what was on the screen appeared, the insert was coded as missing and the coder advanced to the next 5-min sample. The TV program features coded in this study were visual forms, character types, and content features. The formal features were the following. Cuts: Number of changes in camera angle or scene changes that occur over the course of an insert. For analysis, inserts that contained no cuts were contrasted with inserts containing one or more cuts. Movement: Movement through space, such as the letter "A" moving about the screen or a character moving from one destination to another. This does not include minor movements such as gestures made by a character while standing still or mouth motions during speech. A seated character assembling a bicycle would not be considered movement. Animation: Cartoons and artificial drawn images. This was compared with the absence of animation (i.e., live-action video). The character types for this study were the following. Men: Live-action portrayals of human adult male TV characters. This does not include cartoon representations of men. In analysis, men refers to the visual presence of one or more men regardless of the presence of women but not including the presence of children or nonhumans. Women: Human adult female characters not including cartoon representations of women. In analysis, women refers to the visual presence of one or more women regardless of the presence of men but not including the presence of children or nonhumans. Children: Live-action portrayals of human characters age 12 years or younger. In analysis, children refers to the visual presence of child characters with no other character types present. Mixed groups of adults and children were not included in the present analyses because the coding scheme required identifying the ages of participants as child, teen, adult, or mixed. When the coder identified that character ages were mixed, it could not be determined after the fact whether child viewers were present. Therefore, the coding procedure was limited in that it was only possible to determine that child characters were present when characters from other

LOOKING AT TELEVISION age groups were not present. Similar constraints apply to the other character codes. Nonhumans: Puppets, animals, or objects that are made to be animate (e.g., a talking milk carton); these do not include cartoon nonhumans. Cartoon characters were excluded because it was expected that animation would have different influences on attention than live portrayals. In analysis, nonhumans refers to the visual presence of nonhuman characters with no other character types present. A content feature for this study was purposeful overt character behavior: a character doing something overt and apparently purposeful such as hammering nails or reading a book. An insert showing a character who was talking but not otherwise engaged in overt and apparently purposeful behavior was coded as not containing this feature. Talking alone was not considered overt behavior because language was considered potentially more difficult for young viewers. Overt behaviors should be equally understandable to 2-year-old and adult viewers. Note that purposeful overt character behavior does not necessarily require movement as defined above. Each category also has an uncertainty code that was used in those instances when it was impossible to determine category membership. The participant's behavior was coded as looking at the TV, not looking at the TV, or uncertain (as when the participant was out of view of the camera but was positioned in the room such that it was still possible to be watching TV). The coding procedure was thus a point sampling every 5 min of cumulative time spent with TV across the entire 10 days of recorded viewing. Interobserver reliability was obtained by having five coders rate 1 participant for 190 samples. Average dichotomous correlation coefficients were .85 for adult male, .88 for adult female, .98 for child, .97 for nonhuman, .84 for cuts, .78 for movement, .93 for animation, and .78 for overt purposeful character action. The average correlation between observers for the viewer looking at the TV was .87. In addition to the coding described above, all programming was categorized as to whether or not it was primarily produced for children. This coding made use of the CRITC TV program database provided by the CRITC research group at the University of Kansas. Programming that was not listed in the CRITC database was categorized as intended for adults or children on the basis of TV Guide descriptions, inspection of the programs as shown in the time-lapse videotapes, and various movie guides and listings. Commercials that occurred within or immediately before or after a children's program were categorized as part of children's programming; otherwise they were categorized as adult programming.

Results Participants were videotaped with television for an average of 18.36 hr (range = 4.01 to 45.26 hr), providing an average of 220 samples per participant (range = 48 to 543 samples). A 2 (sex) X 5 (age) analysis of variance (ANOVA) for number of samples revealed no significant effects.

Feature Frequency The number of inserts that could not be coded averaged 3 (1%) and ranged from 0 to 36 (16%). This did not vary by age or sex of participant. Sometimes the television screen was partially blocked, or the lighting in the viewing room partially obscured what was on the screen. In these instances, the coders would code only those features that they could see. The percentage of inserts in which a feature could not be coded ranged from a mean of 2% for animation to a mean of 5% for overt purposeful character behavior. This did not vary by age or sex of participant. Table 1 provides the percentage of occurrence of features across

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Table 1 Percentage Occurrence of Television Features Overall and by Programming Content Programming Feature Form features Cuts Movement Animation Character types Men Women Children Nonhumans Content feature Purposeful character behavior

Overall

Child

Adult

57 22 20

61 25 50

55 21 3

40 21 2 6

13 6 5 13

55 29 1 3

26

29

24

all programming and for child and adult programming separately. Overall, 36% of the programming observed was aimed at children. The most substantial differences between child and adult programming were that child programming had more animation, children, and nonhumans as well as fewer men and women. The fact that child programming is more concrete and action oriented than adult programming is reflected in slightly more overt purposeful character behavior, movement, and cuts. The overall greater occurrence of men as compared with women has been reported by numerous television content analyses (Durkin, 1985). Of some note was the relatively infrequent occurrence of live-action children, even during child programming. Table 2 provides the association of features with each other, broken down by child versus adult content. Given that a feature was observed (rows), the table gives the percentage of cooccurrence of each other feature (columns). Human and nonhuman character types were defined as occurring in live-action video and thus by definition did not occur during animation. Table 2 provides the association of common features of television as it was presented in 1980 and 1981. Of some interest is the co-occurrence of men as compared with women with overt purposeful behavior, movement, and cuts. Surprisingly, the differences are small and inconsistent across types of content. Across the broad swath of TV programming, men were not associated with these action features to any greater extent than were women. Animation contained a greater density of cuts and movement than did live action. Finally, it is worth noting that most television programming contained relatively little overt purposeful behavior or movement. It is our impression that television then, and now, primarily presents images of characters talking to each other or to the camera (we did not, however, specifically code for this "talking heads" feature).

Looking at TV Looking behavior was codable in 9,395 samples across the 50 participants. The percentage of samples in which looking could not be determined averaged 15% and ranged from a minimum of 1% to a maximum of 59% (range = 1-141 samples); a 2 (sex) X 5 (age) ANOVA of percentage of codable samples revealed no significant effects. A parallel 2 X 5 ANOVA of percentage of

SCHMITT, ANDERSON, AND COLLINS

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Table 2 Percentage Occurrence of Second Feature Given Presence of First Feature During Adult and Child Programming Cuts

Feature

Movement

Live action

Animation

Men

Women

Children

Nonhumans

Purposeful behavior

Form features Cuts % n(%) Movement % «(%) Animation % /!(%) Live action % n (%)

100 100

21 25

3 59

97 41

51 10

28 4

2 6

3 7

23 27

56 61

100 100

3 60

97 40

56 10

26 5

1 5

4 10

72 68

61 71

23 30

100 100

55 50

21 20

14 27 100 100

60 27

30 11

1 9

3 26

25 31

Character types Men %

n(%) Women % «(%) Children % n(%) Nonhumans % n(%)

51 40

21 18

100 100

100 100

30 21

29 37

53 42

18 20

100 100

57 49

100 100

27 37

66 76

12 25

100 100

61 30

33 20

100 100

100 100

31 48 100 100

34 31

4 14

100 100

Content feature Purposeful behavior % n(%)

52 57

62 59

2 47

98 53

67 17

31 7

2 8

Note, n = percentages for child programming.

codable samples in which the viewer was looking at the TV indicated that looking at television varied with age, F(4, 40) = 5.74, MSE = 201.73, p < .01, as illustrated in Figure 1.

100 Mean

90 80

Notice that 5 participants appear to be outliers insofar as their overall level of looking is substantially lower than that of the other participants in their age groups (three 2-year-olds, one 8-year-old, and one adult). Subsequent analyses were run with and without these participants. In no case were conclusions about significant effects changed. Consequently, all subsequent analyses are reported based on the data from all participants. In the following analyses of looking in relation to visual features or content, age main effects are redundant and are not reported.

70 50

Looking in Relation to Visual Features and Content

.= 60

J 50 § 40 ft.

30 20

10 0

1

g 12 Age (Years)

Adult

Figure I. Average percentage looking at television for each individual. The line connects points representing the average values for each age group.

Features. The initial analyses determined whether looking was associated with feature presence across all types of content. The analysis procedure predicted whether or not a participant looked during each sample in relation to the presence or absence of a given feature, with a separate analysis done for each feature. The statistical procedure used a mixed-effects logistic model with subject specific interpretation (Wolfinger & O'Connell, 1993). The specific algorithm for the analysis was the GLIMMIX procedure as developed in the SAS statistical software package (Version 6.12). This procedure takes into account participants as a random-effects variable and treated age, sex, and presence or absence of a feature as well as interactions of age and sex with the

LOOKING AT TELEVISION

feature as fixed-effects variables. The final model always retained the participant and sex main effects. If an interaction did not approach significance (p < .15), the interaction was dropped and the model recalculated. This procedure was used instead of a multivariate analysis of variance to make maximal use of the available data. Figure 2 (A-G) plot the difference scores (percentage looking in feature presence minus percentage looking in feature absence) as a function of age. Table 3 provides the statistical values obtained in the analyses. There were significant main effects for all features and significant interactions with age for animation, men TV characters, and women TV characters. Viewers looked more to cuts, movement, child characters, and nonhuman characters. Inspection of the figures indicates that child viewers' looking was enhanced during animation whereas adults looked less during animation. Furthermore, viewers under age 11 years depressed their attention to men TV characters. For women TV characters, there was also an interaction with sex of viewer: Women characters were negatively associated with looking for 5-year-old male viewers and positively associated with looking for 12-year-old and adult female viewers. Content. The study included two categories of content: one relatively specific, overt purposeful character behavior, and one broad, adult versus child content. As can be seen in Figure 2H and Table 3, overt purposeful character behavior was positively related to looking. The analysis of looking at child versus adult content showed, not surprisingly, that the effect of content type strongly interacted with age of viewer (see Table 3 and Figure 3). Child viewers looked relatively more at child content and adult viewers looked relatively more at adult content. Child viewers that were the same ages as those observed in prior studies (Alwitt et al, 1980; Anderson & Levin, 1976; Calvert et al., 1982) showed enhanced looking at cuts, movement, animation, nonhumans, and children. They showed reduced looking at men. These results closely replicate prior research. Inspection of Table 1, however, indicates that some of these features are strongly associated with either child or adult content. This raises the question of whether the feature results are dependent on the differential association of the features with child or adult content. Analysis in relation to child versus adult content. The following analyses applied the GLIMMIX procedure to each feature, but this time the relationship of looking to feature presence was considered in the context of content type (child vs. adult program) and interactions with content type as part of the design. The final model for each analysis always includes the main effects of participants, age, sex, and content type. Of interest are main effects or interactions involving each feature. When an interaction does not approach significance (p < .15), it is dropped and the model recalculated. Only significant effects involving the feature under consideration are reported below; the participants random-effect variable, program type, and the Age X Program Type interaction are significant in all analyses. The results are described in the context of predictions made by the three developmental theories of attention to television. Table 4 provides the statistical values obtained in the analyses. Cuts. The orienting reaction theory of Singer (1980) predicts a positive relationship of looking to cuts but with a reduced effect for older viewers who presumably are more capable of inhibiting their orienting reactions than younger children. Content type should have no relationship to these effects. The comprehension-

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driven attention theory of Anderson and Lorch (1983) would predict no effect in the youngest viewers, who have not yet learned the significance of cuts, but increasing attention to cuts by older viewers. This trend should be apparent at younger ages for child content and older ages for adult content. The Huston and Wright (1989) exploration-search theory predicts that cuts should have a positive relationship to attention at all ages for all types of content, although the underlying mechanism differs depending on age of viewer and type of content. The youngest viewers' looking at cuts is driven by salience, whereas the older viewers' looking is driven by the meaning conveyed by cuts. The analysis revealed a main effect of cuts and no interactions (see Table 4). Regardless of age of viewer and program type, viewers looked more immediately following 6-s samples containing cuts than following samples containing no cuts. This result is most consistent with the prediction based on the Huston and Wright (1989) exploration-search theory. Movement. Singer's (1980) orienting reaction theory predicts a positive effect of movement with a smaller effect for adults. The other two theories predict a positive relationship at all ages. For example, the comprehension-driven attention theory of Anderson and Lorch (1983) focuses on the association of movement with character activity central to comprehension. This theory and that of Huston and Wright (1989) predict enhanced attention for all ages and all types of content. The analysis indicated a movement main effect (see Table 4), owing to greater looking in the presence than the absence of movement. There were no significant interactions with age of viewer. This result is therefore most consistent with both the comprehension-driven attention theory and the exploration-search theory. Animation. Animation appeared so infrequently in adult programming that it occurred almost entirely as child content (see Table 1). Thus, an analysis of animation across content would essentially compare child content with adult content, as in Figure 3. To test for the effects of animation with content controlled, we examined animation within child content only, eliminating the small amount of animation found within adult content. This analysis, in effect, compares animation to live action during children's programming. Because Singer (1980) did not discuss any features other than cuts and movement, no certain predictions based on his theory can be made about this or the remaining features. The comprehension-driven attention theory of Anderson and Lorch (1983) predicts that looking at animation will increase with age, at least to middle childhood, as children become more aware of its status as a prime indicator of child-oriented content. On the same grounds, the theory should predict somewhat less looking by adults. The exploration-search theory of Huston and Wright (1989) should predict high levels of looking at the youngest ages because animation is a salient feature and should therefore drive attention (exploration). During mid to late childhood, animation should remain positive because animation was a prime indicator of child content. Predictions concerning adults require some assumptions. The exploration-search theory argues that if the content of a television program is not actively processed (e.g., it is judged as irrelevant to one's interests), then attention to television is driven by salient features. If this assumption is applied to adult viewers of children's programs (because they may be coincidentally in the viewing room but for a purpose other than to watch TV), animation

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SCHMITT, ANDERSON, AND COLLINS

30 20

t

0

S-20

S •30

2

5

8 12 Age (Years)

Adult

5

8 12 Age (Years]

Adult

Adult

Adult

« 12 Age (Yearcl

Adult

Figure 2. Difference scores (percentage looking in feature presence minus percentage looking in feature absence) as a function of age for (A) cuts, (B) movement, (C) animation, (D) men, (E) women, (F) children, (G) nonhumans, and (H) purposeful character behavior.

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Table 3 F and p Values Obtained in Mixed-Effects Logistic Regression Analyses Feature Form features Cuts Movement Animation Character types Men Women Children Nonhumans Content features Purposeful character behavior Program type

Feature main effect 27.5*** 42.78*** 38.06*** 44.78*** 16.00*** 17.42*** 18.60*** 65.92*** 128.9***

Feature X Age interaction

Feature X Sex interaction

4.94* 14.22*** 12.72**

4.04*

25.92***

Note. All degrees of freedom were greater than 8989. *p < . 0 1 . ***/>< .001.

should produce greater looking than live action. This is because animation is a salient feature. The only significant effect was an Age X Animation interaction, owing to the effect of animation becoming increasingly positive with age of viewer. The difference scores were 1.2, 2.3, 2.3, 8.1, and 27.5 for the 2-, 5-, 8-, 12-year, and adult groups, respectively. Viewers of all ages looked more at animation than live content, but the older viewers looked substantially more at animated child content in preference to live-action child content. The results of this analysis, by broadly controlling type of content, produced an age trend opposite to that of the overall analysis. Neither of the theories clearly predicts this result. The comprehension-driven attention theory predicts an increase in looking at animation with age, as was found, but cannot account for the high level of looking by adults. The exploration-search theory presumably predicts high levels of looking at animation as compared with live action at all ages. A consideration of the content of the live-action versus animated children's programs might provide a sensible explanation of the results. At the time videotapes were collected (1980 and 1981), the live-action children's programs tended to be oriented toward preschoolers (e.g., Captain Kangaroo and Mister Roger's Neighborhood), whereas most of the animated programs (e.g., Superfriends and The Roadrunner) were oriented toward somewhat older children. Any inherent advantages of salience the animation might have had for younger viewers may have been outweighed by the more age-appropriate content of the live-action programs. That said, even within a single preschool program, Sesame Street, Levin and Anderson (1976) reported that looking at animation compared with live action increased with age, as was found in the present analysis. Taken together, these results suggest that animation may not have a significant advantage over live action as a salient feature for eliciting attention by young children. Men. Because men are generally associated with adult content and because men as a visual feature are not salient, both the comprehension-attention theory and the exploration-search theory would predict that children should have reduced attention to men. Older children and adult viewers should not show this effect.

Additionally, the Huston and Wright (1983, 1989) theory notes that viewers may search for information of particular relevance to them. Consequently, the theory allows sex differences in the relative attention paid to men; male viewers may be relatively more interested in male TV characters than female TV characters (also see Luecke-Aleksa, Anderson, Collins, & Schmitt, 1995; Slaby & Frey, 1975). Viewers in fact looked less in the presence of men than in their absence, yielding a feature main effect. A marginally significant Program Type X Feature interaction and a significant Sex X Feature interaction (see Table 4) qualify this main effect. Unlike the overall analysis, the interaction with age was not significant, probably because the present analysis broadly controlled content. During adult programming, male viewers looked slightly more when men characters were present, producing a difference score of 3.9, but female viewers looked slightly less with a difference score of —3.2. During child programming, both sexes were less likely to look during the presence of men, although male viewers had less depressed looking than female viewers (-3.1 for male and —9.0 for female viewers). These results are most consistent with the exploration-search theory of Huston and Wright (1989) although a positive age trend, particularly during adult programming, might have been expected. Women. The theories would make similar arguments about women characters. However, because women are less strongly associated with adult content, the negative relationship to looking for child viewers should be less. The analysis revealed only a significant interaction of feature presence with program type. During adult programs, viewers had slightly elevated looking at woman characters (average difference score of 4.6). During child programs, the presence of woman characters was negative (average difference score of —5.2). Although the comprehension-driven attention and exploration-search theories predict reduced looking at women during child content, it is not clear that the theories would predict enhanced looking during adult content. In addition, a sex difference such that female viewers pay more attention to female characters is reasonably predicted by the explorationsearch theory. Although such an effect was found for the overall analysis, it failed to reach significance when type of content was broadly controlled.

Mean

8 12 Age (Years)

Adult

Figure 3. Percentage looking at television in the presence of child programming minus percentage attention in the presence of adult programming. The line connects points representing the average values for each age group.

1164

SCHMITT, ANDERSON, AND COLLINS

Table 4 F and p Values Obtained in Content Type Mixed-Effects Logistic Regression Analyses Interaction Feature Form features Cuts Movement Character types Men Women Children Nonhumans Content features Overt purposeful character behavior

Feature main effect

Feature X Program Type

Feature X Sex

3.73t 26.04*** 7.97**

4.90*

Feature X Program Type X Age

19.66*** 35.76*** 7.41**

5.04*

13.57*** 5.03*

3.94*

Note. All degrees of freedom were greater than 8875. fp < .06. * p < . 0 5 . **p