Early Learning About the World From Symbolic Media

Transcription

1 Early Learning About the World From Symbolic Media Georgene Troseth Department of Psychology & Human Development Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt Kennedy Center

2 Talk Plan The role of symbols Models and pictures Baby videos Toddlers and video Autism: videos vs. people

3 Symbol Any thing that someone intends to stand for or represent something other than itself

4 Representational Insight

5 Symbol Systems and Devices

6 Studying Symbolic Development in Young Children: Constraints Short attention span Impulsive Limited language Immature motor development Changeable emotions

7 Search task Simple problem solving game Find a toy hidden in a room Child does not see hiding event directly Information on where to find the object comes from a symbol (picture, map, model, or video) If child understands the symbolic relation, will be able to solve the problem

8 Scale model task (DeLoache, 1987) Ages: 2 1/2-year-olds 3-year-olds

9 Scale Model Task Retrieval1 (Symbolic) Retrieval 2 (Memory) 2.5-year-olds 3-year-olds

10 Why don t 2-1/2-year-olds use a scale model as a symbol? Dual Representation hypothesis: Symbol use requires thinking about the model in 2 ways at the same time: As a set of miniature objects (a toy) As a representation for something else

11 A Prediction Based on Dual Representation The younger group would do better with a less interesting object as a symbol e.g., If the experimenter showed them a picture of the hiding place Even though 2-D pictures are less memorable and informative than objects

12 Model & Picture Tasks Retrieval 1 (Symbolic) Retrieval 2 (Memory) Photos Model

13 The Credible Shrinking Room DeLoache, Miller, & Rosengren (1997, Psych. Science) Terry the Troll Diagram of lab rooms

14 2-1/2-year-olds Standard Model (Symbolic) Shrinking Room (Non-symbolic)

15 Summary: Models It is difficult for very young children to achieve dual representation especially when the symbolic object is intrinsically interesting/ has a different function (a toy = to play with) There is significant development in the preschool period

16 Pictures Children used pictures as representations earlier than models Pictures are not very interesting as objects At least, not to preschoolers What about babies?

17 DeLoache, Pierroutsakos, Uttal, Rosengren, & Gottlieb (1998). Grasping the nature of pictures, Psychological Science, 9, Ages: 9, 15, and 19 months

18 Do Children Learn to Manually Explore Pictures?

19 Learning the nature of pictures 15-month-olds do much less grasping 19-month-olds point and vocalize instead Learning from parents how to respond to pictures

20 Learning from Video Babies Toddlers Preschoolers

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22 Do Babies Learn from Baby Media? 12- to 18-montholds Parents given a DVD or the vocab. words written on a piece of paper 1 month exposure, 5 times per week Control group: no added activities DeLoache, Chiong, Sherman, Islam, Vanderborght, Troseth, Strouse, & O Doherty (2010, Psych. Science)

23 Results Children who viewed the DVD did not learn any more words than a control group did Highest level of learning occurred in the novideo parent-teaching condition Parents who liked the DVD overestimated how much their children learned from it

24 Discriminating Speech Sounds 9-month-old English-learning babies Saw & heard Mandarin speakers in person or on DVD for a month (12 hr) At 10 months, could they tell apart two Mandarin sounds? (Kuhl, Tsao, Liu, 2005)

25 Results Children who viewed the DVD showed no evidence of exposure to Mandarin Lost the ability to discriminate the non-native sound differences Children who viewed the speaker in person maintained the ability to discriminate the nonnative Mandarin sounds

26 The Video Deficit in Toddler Learning Toddlers learn better from a person who is present vs. Imitating a person s novel behavior seen on video Learning a word uttered by a person on video

27 Search Task: Video Participants: 2- and 2-1/2-year-olds Troseth & DeLoache (1998, Child Development)

28 Real Window 2-year-olds watched directly through a window Everything else about the task was the same

29 /2-year-olds 2-year-olds Video Window

30 Video Window Diagram of room

31 Live Video at Home Live Video Control Video Task Picture Transfe r Troseth (2003, Developmental Psychology)

32 Everyday Symbolic Experience Parent questionnaire of symbolic media use Exposure to live video predicted success in video and picture tasks in the lab (Troseth, Casey, Lawver, Walker, & Cole, 2006)

33 Thus, experience with video that related to reality helped children achieve dual representation They represented the connection between an image (on TV, a photo) and reality What about their responses to other people on video?

34 Responding to people on video (Troseth, Saylor, & Archer, 2006, Child Development) Telling on TV Telling in person I hid Piglet under the blanket. 27% correct Success at finding 77% correct

35 Study 2: The researcher on TV first interacted responsively with the child & parent for 5 minutes Then she told the child the toy s location I hid Piglet under the blanket. 69% correct on finding game

36 Todders & Video: Summary Children do not expect TV to connect to reality Experience with video that was related to reality helped them to use information from video Social cues missing from video impair learning for very young viewers Providing those cues on video (e.g., contingent responsiveness) helped them learn

37 Preschool age Substantial evidence that preschoolers (aged 3-5) learn and have enduring educational benefits from watching Sesame Street (e.g., Anderson, Huston, Wright, et al., 2001)

38 Parent Coviewing and Child Learning 3-year-olds 4-week study with preand post-tests Children watch storybooks on video Tested on vocabulary and comprehension Strouse, O Doherty, & Troseth, In preparation

39 Conditions Dialogic Questioning: Parents were trained to pause the videos and ask questions Directed attention: Same except parents labeled and described rather than questioning Regular Video: Parents showed the videos to their children as normal

40 Dialogic question prompts Completion Fill in the blank. e.g., I ll huff, I ll puff, I ll Recall Remember something that happened in the story Open-ended Short answer. e.g., What do you think he ll do next? Wh questions Start with Who, Where, When, Why, or What Distancing Relating story contents to the child s life -- e.g., Do you remember when we saw the elephant at the zoo?

41 Standardized Vocabulary (EOW-PVT): Dialogic questioning group had more improvement than Regular video group in expressive vocabulary Results

42 Story-Specific Vocabulary: Compared to the regular video group, the Dialogic questioning group identified significantly more items in screenshots from the video They did not do better at identifying other drawings of the objects Story Comprehension: They correctly answered more questions The Directed Attention group scored in the middle (learned somewhat better than watching alone)

43 Learning from Video in ASD Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) learn better from video modeling than from a person who is present (e.g., Charlop- Christy, Le, & Freeman, 2000; Corbett & Abdullah, 2005) Possible explanations: Video close-ups help focus attention Social interaction may be relatively less rewarding, compared to other stimuli in the environment

44 Aims: Explore possible differences in visual preference for video vs. a real person May underlie learning efficiency Younger children with ASD than usually studied using video modeling (20 boys and 3 girls, 2 to 8 years) TD group at similar mental age TD group at similar chronological age Used Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales to match groups

45 Visual Preference 5-minute presentation similar to Dora the Explorer In-person and on video, simultaneously

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48 ASD 5 year olds 1.5 year olds 2.5 year olds L inear (ASD) Individual cases Percent Prefers Live over Video during the BOTH trial (postivie means they prefere live) BOTH TRIAL - percent prefers live over video (all groups) Chronological Age in Months = 1.5 yr; X = 2.5 yr; = 5 yr; = ASD

49 Results Young TD children strongly preferred to watch the person Older TD children preferred the video Children with ASD varied, but tended to divide attention between person & video Children with higher ADOS severity scores (more impairment) showed more preference for the video over the person

50 Implications/ Applications? More impaired children with ASD showed a preference for the video (vs. the person) Individual preferences might suggest which children would benefit from video modeling Need to look at preferences and learning together For young TD children, a strong preference to watch the real person echoes the video deficit in learning Older children (who typically learn from video) did not show the same preference

51 Thanks to Kate O Doherty, Brian Verdine, Gabrielle Strouse, Lauren Deisenroth & the Early Development Lab Judy DeLoache & the Virginia Child Studies Lab Wendy Stone, Dana Christiansen, & Cassandra Newsom, Vanderbilt TRIAD Nameera Akhtar Priya Shimpi Megan Saylor Paul Yoder Kathy Anderson Allison Archer Support was provided by the Dan Marino Foundation, by NICHD grant P30 HD to the Kennedy Center at Vanderbilt University, and HD to GT

52 Social stimuli In many studies involving children with autism (e.g., face processing), Response to social stimuli = Response to videos or pictures of people Here, we compare children s response to video of a person and the person herself Main hypothesis: Compared to TD children, children with ASD will show less preference for a person who is present and interactive

53 Results: Visual Preference Simultaneous Presentation Difference scores (proportion): preference for watching the person live (vs. video) M SD ASD TD TD TD ANOVA x group: F(3, 86) = 11.81, p <.001 Bonferroni post-hoc tests: TD 1.5 = TD 2.5 > ASD** = TD 5* *p =.0002, **p =.0001

54 L I VE LIVE VI DEO VIDEO L I VE VI DEO VI DEO L I VE % Attending 1.5 year olds Live & Video Only % Attending Chronological Age % Attending to Demo 2.5 year olds Live & Video Only Trials chronological age in months % attending 5 year olds Live & Video Chronological Age in Months % Attending ASD Live & Video Only Trials Chronological Age in Months

55 We are a Symbolic Species