Influence of Story Schema Development on Children's Attention to Television

Abstract

In an experiment, the influence of story schema development on children's attention to television was examined. A factorial design was used: story schema development (low, high) × story content (central, incidental) × story structure (story, nonstory), requiring two separate testing sessions. In the first, children (5 to 8 years old) watched two stories on television and completed story schema assessment tasks; performance was used to assign children to high or low story schema groups. In the second session, children were randomly assigned to view a television program structured like a story or a program with no underlying story structure. Dependent variables were attention (measured with a secondary task) and recognition memory. Advanced story schema skills were related to reduced processing effort, increased memory of central story content, greater flexibility of allocation strategies, and better coordination between attention and memory.