Children's auditory and visual processing of narrated and nonnarrated television programming

Two experiments with 5- and 7-year-old children tested the hypotheses that auditory attention is used to (a) monitor a TV program for important visual content, and (b) semantically process program information through language to enhance comprehension and visual attention. A direct measure of auditory attention was the latency of the child's restoration of gradually degraded sound quality. Restoration of auditory clarity did not vary as a function of looking. Restoration of visual clarity was faster when looking than when not looking. Restoration was faster for visual than auditory degrades, but audiovisual degrades were restored most rapidly of all, suggesting that dual modality presentation maximizes children's attention. Narration enhanced visual attention and comprehension including comprehension of visually presented material. Auditory comprehension did not depend on looking, suggesting that children can semantically process verbal content without looking at the TV. Auditory attention did not differ with the presence or absence of narration, but did predict auditory comprehension best while visual attention predicted visual comprehension best. In the absence of narration, auditory attention predicted visual comprehension, suggesting its monitoring function. Visual attention indexed overall interest and appeared to be most critical for comprehension in the absence of narration.