Connecting Live-action and Animation to Reality: Young Children’s Analogical Problem Solving From Videos

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - Technology, Media & Child Development

Abstract

Perceptual similarity plays an important role in children’s ability to generalize learned information from one context to another (e.g., Barnett & Ceci, 2002). Although animation is commonly used in children’s educational media, a lack of iconicity (i.e., resemblance to real-life stimuli) could hinder children’s generalization of information from educational media to the real-world (e.g., Ganea, Pickard, & DeLoache, 2008). This study was designed to test the influence of iconicity on children’s transfer from a video to an analogous real-life problem.

Preschool children (N = 67, 3-5 years) viewed a video depicting either a live-action or animated demonstration. In the videos, a child actor demonstrated how to transfer toy lemons to a jar that was enclosed in a plastic storage container. The opening in the container was far from the jar, so the lemons could not be dropped directly into the jar. The actor inserted a rolled-up sheet of paper through the hole in the container at an angle, allowing the actor to roll the lemons along the tube and into the jar (Figure 1a). The animated video used the same audio track as the live-action video, and it depicted the same actions. After watching the video, children were asked to solve an analogous real-life problem that required the use of a tool (Figure 1b). We also assessed children’s comprehension of the video demonstration by asking them to identify how the actor in the video solved the problem.

The odds of children transferring from video to an analogical real-life problem were significantly higher for those in the live-action condition than those in the animated condition [β = 2.58, SE= 1.02, odds ratio = 13.16, p < .05]. That is, iconicity improved preschoolers’ generalization of learned information from video to a real-life problem. This finding is consistent with prior research on iconicity in picture books (e.g., Ganea et al., 2008).

Children’s comprehension of the video also predicted the likelihood that children solved the analogous real-life problem [β = 4.11, SE= 1.52, odds ratio= 60.66, p < .01]. Yet, comprehension did not differ by video format [live-action = 70% correct, animated = 62%; X2(df=1, n=67) = .47, p = .49]. It may be that children who verbally encoded the demonstration were better able to apply a general strategy (e.g., create a tube) during the analogical real-life task.

Finally, there was a marginally significant interaction between age and video format [β = .31, SE= .17, odds ratio = 1.37, p = .07], such that transfer increased with age in the live-action condition [β = .33, SE= .16, odds ratio = 1.39, p = .03] but remained relatively low regardless of age in the animated condition [β = .02, SE= .08, odds ratio = 1.02, p = .81]. See Figure 2. It may be that low iconicity renders transfer more difficult, even among older preschoolers, protracting the age at which children transfer from video to analogous real-life problems. Future research with older children would elucidate the developmental time-course of transfer from live-action video versus animation.

Authors

• Seung Heon Yoo, University of Rochester
  Presenting Author

• Heather Kirkorian, University of Wisconsin - Madison
  Non-Presenting Author