Poster #233 - Co-viewing and learning from 2D media

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Technology, Media & Child Development

Integrative Statement

It has repeatedly been reported that young children have a harder time learning from media than from real life events. This transfer deficit (Barr, 2010) might be ameliorated by support processes such as verbal or visual cues, social interaction and repetition. A specific form is co-viewing, when adults watch media content with children and explains the content to the child (e.g. Courage, 2017). When and how co-viewing is effective is however not clear. Barr and Wyss (2008) even found that 24-month-olds imitated equally well whether they got scripted verbal cues from a present parent or from a prerecorded voice.

The study investigated if an active and instructed co-viewing strategy leads to better learning from 2D-media than a spontaneous non-instructed strategy (Figure 1). All children saw a video demonstrating memory tasks together with a parent. Half of the parents were instructed to help their child by actively verbalize what they saw on the video. For the other half, the parents were just told to watch a video together with their child. We expected that active co-viewing would support encoding which in turn would have a positive effect on recall. In addition we also investigated to what extent language and cognition were associated with early memory performance.

Thirty-five two-year old children (M = 24.22 months; SD = 0.71) participated together with one parent (8 fathers; all Swedish speaking). The children were randomized into one intervention group (n = 18; 8 girls) and one control group (n = 17; 8 girls). Memory was measured with the Frankfurter imitation test-24 (FIT 24; Kolling & Knopf, 2015) which includes eight deferred imitation tasks of different complexity (max score = 29). The test was video-recorded and shown on a tablet. Finally, Bayley III-Screening test measured the children’s language and developmental levels.

On average, the parents in the intervention group used more words (562 vs. 177; p < .01) and verbs (52 vs. 11; p < .01) than the control group but this difference did not affect memory recall (M = 16.06; SD = 5.66 vs. M = 16.39; SD = 3.74; t33 = -.21, ns). The sex of parent did not influence the results. Significant associations were found between memory and receptive (r = .45) and expressive (r = .43) language. A regression analysis showed that the overall Bayley-S score explained a large part of the children’s memory score (R2 = .43).

Surprisingly, we found no specific effect of our co-viewing intervention although our analysis of the verbal input revealed significant differences between the two groups. It might be that the children were already too familiar with 2D media. In fact, digital media was well established in all participating families. However, the study also shows that a 2D media presentation results in a similar overall memory score as previously reported for the FIT24 test when presented in 3D (M = 16; see Kolling & Knopf, 2015). Finally, the study evidenced, in line with previous research, strong associations between the child’s overall development and early memory performance.

Authors

• Mikael Heimann, Linköping University
  Presenting Author

• Louise Hedendahl, Linköping University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elida Ottmer, Linköping University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Thorsten Kolling, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität
  Non-Presenting Author

• Felix-Sebastian Koch, Linköping University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ulrika Birberg-Thornberg, Linköping University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anett Sundqvist, Linköping University
  Non-Presenting Author