Comparing Television Use and Reading in Children With ADHD and Non-Referred Children Across Two Age Groups

There has been abundant speculation, but very little research, concerning the role of television in the lives of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This study compared the use of television and other media in samples of children with ADHD and nonreferred children. Children with ADHD were reported to watch more television, a difference partially accounted for by demographic and environmental characteristics. Children with ADHD were also reported to enjoy television more and have greater involvement in television-related activities, and to enjoy reading less and be less involved in reading-related activities. However, there were no diagnostic group differences in reports of weekly reading, and weekly reading was unrelated to television viewing in children with ADHD. Results suggest a complex relation between television viewing and ADHD not recognized in previous research and popular commentary, and suggest that research on children with ADHD's television use should consider environmental and developmental contexts.     

An Analysis of the Portrayal of Gender Roles in Turkish Television Advertisements

The aim of this study was to examine gender role portrayals in Turkish television advertising. For this purpose, a content analysis of the advertisements that aired on the selected 6 television channels was carried out. Three hundred fourteen independent advertisements were coded according to general characteristics of the advertisements and demographic and attitudinal/behavioral characteristics of the primary figures. The data show significant gender differences in these 2 groups of variables. The findings are also compared with findings of other research conducted in different cultural settings.     

Gender stereotyping in television advertisements: a study of French and Danish television

Two similar, but not identical, content analyses of the portrayals of men and women in French and Danish television advertisements are reported. By partially replicating and extending past investigations conducted in America, Australia, Britain, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, and New Zealand, it was predicted that there would be more gender stereotyping in French television advertisements and less gender stereotyping in Danish television advertisements. In the first study, 165 French television advertisements were analyzed by following established coding categories (A. Furnham & E. Skae, 1997; L. Z. McArthur & B. G. Resko, 1975). Contrary to prediction, the results showed that traditional gender role portrayal on French television was no different from that found in other countries. Separate statistical analyses were carried out for visually versus aurally classified central figures, yet this yielded relatively few significant differences. In the second study, a sample of 151 Danish advertisements was analyzed; results showed that Danish television was generally less gender stereotypic than French television in its portrayal of women. Exactly half (5) of the coding categories showed significant differences. Finally, an international statistical comparison between these two studies and similar research in Australia, Britain, and Italy was carried out. The methodological implications of these results are discussed as well as the theoretical issues arising from other studies of this sort.     

Television Viewing and Rape Myth Acceptance among College Women

Prior research has shown that people who consume pornographic movies and magazines are more likely to accept rape myths. The results of the present study build on that research to link the acceptance of rape myths to general, daily television use among college women. Furthermore, our data show that college women who watch more television are more likely to believe that rape accusations are false. In addition, the data support a positive relationship between conservative political ideology and rape myth acceptance. However, the data do not support the cultivation hypothesis; that is, television use did not correlate with the overestimation of rape in society. The results suggest the need for additional research focused on the role that general television viewing may play in perpetuating rape-related misperceptions.     

Sex role stereotyping in Australian television advertisements

Television has attracted considerable attention in recent years because of alleged bias in its sex-role content. Studies of television in Great Britain and the United States have generally fuelled concerns that the medium presents male and female characters in traditionally stereotyped ways. Comparatively little research has focused on the way men and women are depicted in other nations' television. Such analyses contribute towards a more comprehensive account of sex role stereotyping and to cross cultural investigation. The present study examined the portrayal of male and female characters in a sample of contemporary Australian television advertisements. A sample of evening commercials was analyzed using measures developed in North American and British work. Strong evidence of differences in the presentation of male and female characters was obtained, and the differences were consistent with those reported in studies of television content in the northern hemisphere. There is little reason to suppose that this area of Australian media is changing substantially in response to public debate. The implications of possible differences between nations in terms of sex role stereotyping in commercials are discussed.     

Media Exposure and Attitudes Toward Drug Addiction Spending, 1975–2004

In this article we examine the relationships between media exposure (television and newspaper) and drug addiction spending attitudes. Theory and research suggest the critical role of media for shaping views and influencing public opinion. However, no studies have considered media's impact for individual-level drug-related attitudes. We examine this using General Social Survey and other data from 1975 to 2004. Results from logistic regression analyses indicate that greater frequency of television viewing and of newspaper reading are associated with higher likelihoods of saying too little money is spent to address addiction. These findings are robust even when accounting for other factors.     

Third_Person Perception of Television Violence: The Role of Self_Perceived Knowledge

This study investigated the proposition that self-perceived knowledge or self-expertise is a primary theoretical construct in understanding third-person perception of television violence effects. Consistent with most past research, the findings confirm people's third-person tendencies to attribute greater media effects of television violence on other people than on themselves. As hypothesized, self-perceived knowledge was a stronger predictor of third-person perception than sociodemographic variables (demographics, ideology, and media use). The study also found that self-perceived knowledge was more likely to moderate than mediate the relationship between sociodemographic variables and third-person perception. Whereas a moderator affects the strength of the relationship between an independent variable and a dependent variable, a mediator explains the relationship between the two variables. In sum, the findings indicate that respondents' judgments of their superior self-perceived knowledge of television violence might be of theoretical significance in third-person effect research.     

Predicting Selection and Activity in Television Genre Viewing

"Active" television viewing has meant (among other things) selective exposure to types of content, attention to that content, and several different kinds of other activities during viewing itself. This study argues that such meanings are differently predicted by three types of predictors (individuals' gratifications sought from different television genres, their expertise with these genres, and their need for cognition), and also vary by genre. Two different instrumental reasons for viewing (mood and content preference) both predicted selective viewing and thinking while viewing, but only content preference predicted attentive viewing. Casual reasons for viewing were related to less viewing and more channel surfing behavior. Need for cognition was unrelated to variation in genre viewing, but it was related in differing but sensible ways to attention to different genres.

These results support the utility of genre in differentiating processes in television viewing and further argue for making a number of distinctions in research: between genres, between gratifications, between gratifications and other predictors, and between selective viewing and during-viewing activities.     

Transfer of learning between 2D and 3D sources during infancy: Informing theory and practice

The ability to transfer learning across contexts is an adaptive skill that develops rapidly during early childhood. Learning from television is a specific instance of transfer of learning between a two-dimensional (2D) representation and a three-dimensional (3D) object. Understanding the conditions under which young children might accomplish this particular kind of transfer is important because by 2 years of age 90% of US children are viewing television on a daily basis. Recent research shows that children can imitate actions presented on television using the corresponding real-world objects, but this same research also shows that children learn less from television than they do from live demonstrations until they are at least 3 years old; termed the video deficit effect. At present, there is no coherent theory to account for the video deficit effect; how learning is disrupted by this change in context is poorly understood. The aims of the present review are: (1) to review the conditions under which children transfer learning between 2D images and 3D objects during early childhood and (2) to integrate developmental theories of memory processing into the transfer of learning from media literature using Hayne’s (2004) developmental representational flexibility account. The review will conclude that studies on the transfer of learning between 2D and 3D sources have important theoretical implications for general developmental theories of cognitive development, and in particular the development of a flexible representational system, as well as policy implications for early education regarding the potential use and limitations of media as effective teaching tools during early childhood.     

The impact of television,print, and audio on children's recall of the news.

Recent research has shown that children remember more from television news than from print news, a finding that has been explained by the extra mnemonic support offered by redundant television pictures (the dual‐coding hypothesis). The present study was designed to examine three alternative explanations, which attribute children's superior recall of television news to (a) underutilization of the print medium, (b) a recall advantage of listening compared with reading, and imperfect reading ability. A sample of 192 fourth and sixth graders was presented with children's news stories, either in (a) their original television form, (b) a bare print version, a print version supplemented with photo material or in (d) an audio version. Results indicated that the television presentation was remembered better than any of the other three versions. The results of the study were consistent with the dual‐coding hypothesis, whereas no support was found for the alternative explanations tested in the study.     

Possibility of research specific utilization of clinical television setups]

The present study is intended to discuss use of video tape technics in psychiatric research in reference to method, engineering and clinical investigation. A self created variant of a clinical television system is debated. With the support of video tape methods will be realize improvements in quality of psychiatric investigation in view of procedure and determination of the results as well as reliability, objectiveness and exactitude in connection with a postgraduate continued professional training. Reconsiderations of psychiatric documentation systems with regard to reliability represent an other important field of employment.     

Patient drawings of their melanoma: A novel approach to understanding symptom perception and appraisal prior to health care

Although previous research showed that the thin ideal provided by the media affects body image and eating behaviour in young children, less is known about specific media contents that are related to body image and eating behaviour. This study tested the associations between watching soaps and music television and body dissatisfaction and restrained eating directly, and indirectly through thin ideal internalisation. We conducted a survey in class, in which 245 girls (aged 7–9) completed scales on their television watching behaviour, thin ideal internalisation, body dissatisfaction and restrained eating. Additionally, height and weight were measured. Watching soaps and music television often was associated with higher thin ideal internalisation, which in turn was associated with higher body dissatisfaction and restrained eating. Furthermore, a direct association between watching soaps and music television and restrained eating was found. If watching other types of children's programmes or maternal encouragement to be thin were included in the models, watching soaps and music television remained an important factor, especially with regard to restrained eating. Therefore, our results suggest that if young girls watch soaps and music television often, this is related to higher restrained eating and body dissatisfaction, directly or indirectly, through higher thin ideal internalisation.     

Sexual and Violent Media's Inhibition of Advertisement Memory: Effect or Artifact?1

Research ( Bushman, 2005 ; Bushman & Bonacci, 2002 ) has claimed to demonstrate that sexual and violent content in television programs inhibits viewers' memory for advertisements. However, that research failed to adequately control other aspects of the programs' content, making interpretation problematic. The present paper attempts to correct these flaws. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that if other aspects of show content are held constant, sex and violence alone do not affect memory for advertisements. Study 3 provides evidence that while sex or violence does not affect memory, other aspects of program content (e.g., plot, humor) do have a significant influence on advertisement memory. Implications of this research on the interpretation of previous research are discussed.     

Television distraction and the performance of introverts and extroverts

An experiment was run to test the effect on reading comprehension of distraction by a television programme, which was presented while reading took place. Respondents, classified in terms of extroversion or introversion, carried out two reading comprehension tests in silence and in the presence of a television drama programme. As predicted, extroverts and introverts both performed better in silence, but there was a significant interaction that showed that extroverts performed better than introverts in the presence of television distraction. The findings are discussed in relation to previous research on this subject.     

Media multitasking behavior: concurrent television and computer usage

Changes in the media landscape have made simultaneous usage of the computer and television increasingly commonplace, but little research has explored how individuals navigate this media multitasking environment. Prior work suggests that self-insight may be limited in media consumption and multitasking environments, reinforcing a rising need for direct observational research. A laboratory experiment recorded both younger and older individuals as they used a computer and television concurrently, multitasking across television and Internet content. Results show that individuals are attending primarily to the computer during media multitasking. Although gazes last longer on the computer when compared to the television, the overall distribution of gazes is strongly skewed toward very short gazes only a few seconds in duration. People switched between media at an extreme rate, averaging more than 4 switches per min and 120 switches over the 27.5-minute study exposure. Participants had little insight into their switching activity and recalled their switching behavior at an average of only 12 percent of their actual switching rate revealed in the objective data. Younger individuals switched more often than older individuals, but other individual differences such as stated multitasking preference and polychronicity had little effect on switching patterns or gaze duration. This overall pattern of results highlights the importance of exploring new media environments, such as the current drive toward media multitasking, and reinforces that self-monitoring, post hoc surveying, and lay theory may offer only limited insight into how individuals interact with media.     

Moon and Media: Lunar Cycles and Television Viewing

A review of the literature reveals that the possibility of lunar influence on various aspects of human health and behavior has long been taken seriously in established scientific journals. The purpose of this article is to extend this perspective to media research by focusing on the relation between lunar cycles and television viewing behavior. In preliminary analyses performed on a data set containing daily television viewing figures and moon and weather information for Flanders in 1993 (over a 12-month period), a weak but significant positive relation between "the amount of television viewing" and "the percentage of the moon illuminated" was found. However, subsequent analyses of a data set containing daily television viewing figures and moon information for Flanders, Denmark, Norway, and The Netherlands in 2002 (over a 12-month period), revealed a weak positive correlation between "television viewing time" and "percentage of the moon surface illuminated" only in Denmark. Given these inconsistent results, it is concluded that further investigation is needed. Future studies should investigate data over a longer period of time, include additional moon variables (i.e., amount of moonlight), explicitly test the moon-sleep deprivation-television viewing hypothesis, control for other environmental factors (e.g., weather conditions), and search for alternative explanations for a possible relation between amount of television viewing and the moon cycle.     

大力发展心理学的应用研究

本文第一部分介绍了近年来应用心理学研究在我国的发展 ,分析了迅速发展的原因 ;第二部分围绕“电视与人类认知”,总结了作者近年来在应用心理学方面的研究成果 ;第三部分介绍了作者的研究心得与体会 ,包括 :1提高对心理学应用研究的认识 ;2摆好基础研究与应用研究的关系 ;3综合运用心理学的研究方法 ;4着力培养应用型心理学人才。     

A Capacity Model of Children's Comprehension of Educational Content on Television

Many studies have shown that children of various ages learn from educational television, but they have not explained how children extract and comprehend educational content from these television programs. This paper proposes a model (the capacity model) that focuses on children's allocation of working memory resources while watching television. The model consists of a theoretical construct with three basic components (processing of narrative, processing of educational content, and distance, that is, the degree to which the educational content is integral or tangential to the narrative), plus several governing principles that determine the allocation of resources between narrative and educational content. A review of empirical research points to characteristics of both television programs and viewers that affect the allocation of resources under the model, as well as developmental influences on the relevant processing. Finally, implications for the production of effective educational television are discussed.     

A device that provides an eye-to-eye video perspective for interactive television

A device that allows individuals to engage in eye contact while interacting over two-way television is described. The apparatus consists of a television monitor and low light-level television camera housed within a cabinet containing a mirror system that resembles a combination beam splitter and periscope. Through the mirror system, the pick-up camera captures a reflected full-face eye-level image of the television viewer as he or she attends to the display monitor. The device is particularly useful for studying the nonverbal communication patterns of individuals engaged in social interaction.