Developmental Changes in Infants’ and Toddlers’ Attention to Television Entertainment

Abstract

There is a paucity of studies of infants’ and toddlers’ preferences of television content. This home observation study investigated how young children’s attention to television is determined by auditory, visual, and content features of the program and by program difficulty. Fifty 6- to 58-month-olds were presented with a videotape consisting of segments of the news, Sesame Street, Teletubbies, and Lion King II. Results agreed with the moderate-discrepancy hypothesis, which states that young children pay most attention to television content that is only moderately discrepant from their existing knowledge and capabilities. Among infants, salient auditory and visual features (e.g., applause, visual surprises) particularly attracted their attention. These features also attracted older children’s attention, but older children predominantly allocated their attention to television content on the basis of nonsalient (e.g., moderate character action) and content features (e.g., letters/numbers, meaningful dialogue). The attentional shift from salient to nonsalient and content features started between 1.5 and 2.5 years of age.